Publish What You Pay and transition minerals in Asia-Pacific
By Geneva Macaully, Policy Intern, Publish What You Pay Australia
Publish What You Pay hosted the Transition Minerals Workshop and Webinar on 28 September 2021, attended by 43 coalition PWYP members, activists and allies from Australia, Indonesia, India, Timor-Leste, Philippines, PNG and Myanmar.
As part of a series of learning and skill-building workshops on the energy transition for PWYP in the Asia Pacific, this webinar aimed to build awareness around transition minerals and start conversations on the role of coalitions in tackling the growing challenges as a result of the increasing demand for transition minerals.
The webinar featured two experts on transition minerals, offering insights into the corruption risks attached to the energy transition through the extraction of these transition minerals.
Sebastian Sahla is a natural resources governance expert and an independent consultant that has worked with PWYP and Transparency International Australia developing anti-corruption tools and fiscal solutions to achieve a just energy transition.
Nandikesh Sivalingam is the Director of Energy & Clean Air with expertise in policy trends and politics around the Indian energy industry. Nandikesh is also instrumental in the success of the National Clean Air Plan in India.
Transition Minerals refer to the minerals used in the energies that enable the energy transition. These include the minerals used in solar panels, wind turbines and electric vehicles as well as minerals such as lithium which is relevant to specific electric vehicle batteries.
Transition minerals in Asia Pacific region (2015)
Both speakers highlighted the importance of environmental, social and governance (ESG) impacts on local communities as a result of land acquisition for exploration and extraction of transition minerals.
Sebastian emphasised three key anticipated trends of transition minerals;
1. As demand for transition minerals grows this will push mining into jurisdictions that are risker from an environmental, social and governance (ESG) outlook
2. Economic and strategic concerns are changing power dynamics between government and industry
3. The entry of new actors will bring both opportunities and challenges to advance responsible business practices and ESG standards
Nandikesh indicates the challenge with extraction is that the impacts are very localised. Primary impacts such as water pollution, water scarcity and access issues affect communities and their livelihoods. Corruption is one of the main causes of these impacts on communities.
To address corruption risks and ESG impacts involved with transition minerals, climate plus the ecological destruction needs to be considered when campaigning for the climate-energy transition.
In the renewable energy industry, cost drives how much low-carbon installation is going to happen. The case of deep-sea mining sees a trend of countries occupying space within the sector by setting up pilot projects for exploration and extraction. However, deep-sea mining only seeks to be viable if the cost of surface minerals becomes too expensive or becomes exhausted.
Nandikesh points out that the renewable energy industry operates in a very narrow margin-based arena suggesting whether the profitability of deep-sea mining will remain if there is competition to keep prices low?
PWYP members and coalition across Asia Pacific will meet later in 2021 to continue sharing advocacy plans and campaigning ideas around transition minerals and a just energy transition.
A sincere thank you to Chenny Wongkar from ICEL, Indonesia, for moderating this important event and to our two Indonesian Bahasa translators.
For a copy of the webinar, please contact clancy.moore@actionaid.org
You can view PWYP’s position statement on the energy transition here.