Consultative Webinar for African Stakeholders on the work of the Secretary General’s Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals and the UN Global Framework on Just Energy Transitions
Opening remarks
by
Antonio Pedro
Deputy Executive Secretary
Online
14 August 2024
Your Excellency, Ambassador Nozipho Joyce Mxakato-Diseko, Co-Chair of the Secretary-General’s Panel on Critical Minerals,
Distinguished members of the panel
Representatives of member States, the private sector, academia and civil society organizations
Colleagues from the United Nations System
Ladies and gentlemen
It is my honour to address this African consultative meeting on critical energy transition minerals.
I wish to express my gratitude to you for making the time to participate in this important discussion.
Distinguished Ladies and gentlemen
We are on the precipice of a transformative era in energy access and utilization.
Thus, the importance of critical energy transition minerals cannot be overstated.
Indeed, they are the building blocks of our clean energy future and are critically essential for technologies such as electric vehicles, renewable energy systems, and energy storage solutions.
Therefore, our discussions today will contribute to the ongoing regional consultations which, for our continent, started during the recent Conference on Comparative Mineral Governance in Africa organized in Gaborone in late June 2024.
We are tasked with articulating how to achieve a just and inclusive mineral sector, with sustainability at its core.
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen
Remaining below 2°C by 2050 globally will require an estimated three billion tons of energy transition minerals in order to efficiently deploy the wind, solar and energy storage technologies that are anchors of the clean energy era.
This demand represents a significant strategic opportunity for Africa, a region generously endowed with these minerals.
The abundance of cobalt, manganese, lithium, nickel, copper, graphite, and other minerals positions Africa as a key player in shaping the future of clean energy supply and, with it, global sustainable development.
But, and more importantly, a just and fair exploitation will generate sustainable jobs, diversify economies, and dramatically boost revenues which, when efficiently captured and utilized, can support development and transformation.
You will however concur with me that resource endowment is one part of the value chain in the sector, creating an environment for investment into mine development and exploitation as well as resource-driven industrialisation is another equally important aspect.
Africa needs to create a competitive mineral resources development environment which allows the continent to ride the crest of mineral prices as technological developments including those that create substitutes are fast developing.
Among other strategies to enhance the domestic footprint of the CETMs sector, we need to curb the export of unfinished mineral products through value addition and beneficiation to reap rewards at the higher end of the mineral value chains.
African countries have made massive strides to improve governance, but challenges remain in many other areas such as taxation, value addition, and the strengthening of linkages.
Furthermore, the exploitation of these minerals poses multifaceted environmental, social and geopolitical challenges.
Indeed, the race to net zero should not exacerbate poverty, perpetuate injustice, undermine human rights, generate unsustainable jobs, and fail to provide equitable returns to both owners of the resource and investors.
Such high expectations are at the heart of the UN Secretary General’s panel on critical minerals launched on 26 April 2024, and these resonate with our resolve under the Africa Mining Vision.
The SG’s Panel, which consists of the major critical energy transition minerals producing and consuming countries, as well as regional and international institutions active in the energy transition space, trade associations for mineral producers globally, and civil society groups have been tasked to “develop a set of global and common voluntary principles on issues of equity, transparency, investment, sustainability and human rights to strengthen the governance frameworks along the critical energy transition minerals value chains.
Co-chaired by the European Commission and South Africa, the panel is developing, through a fully consultative process, voluntary guidelines which will compel stakeholders to responsibly participate in the CETMs supply chains.
We will have the opportunity to listen to the findings and recommendations of the panel thus far and also enrich these findings through our own insights.
The Africa Mining Vision and the forthcoming Africa Green Minerals Strategy represent Africa’s aspirations in the sector and should therefore inform the principles on CETM.
Other important frameworks include the 2013 World Economic Forum Mineral Value Management (MVM) framework designed to enhance mutual understanding of the holistic drivers of value from mining, and to provide a means to measure and communicate the needs and expectations of various stakeholders. It identified seven dimensions of value, namely fiscal (tax, royalties, etc) and legal/ regulatory environment; employment and skills; environment and biodiversity implications; social cohesion, cultural and socio-economic implications; procurement and local supply chain; beneficiation and downstream industry; and infrastructure. It also recognizes that stakeholders have different perceptions of what constitutes value.
Open, constructive, and ongoing dialogue is important to narrow the perception gaps.
I like the publication “Extracting with Purpose: Creating Shared Value in the Oil and Gas and Mining Sectors’ Companies and Communities” by the Shared Value Initiative. Of particular relevance are its three levels of shared value creation, namely “Reconceiving Products and Markets” by building local markets for intermediate products created by the extractive activity; “Redefining Productivity in Value Chains” by strengthening suppliers in the value chain and improving local workforce capabilities; and “Creating an Enabling Local Environment”, by developing the local cluster supporting the extractives sectors, and investing in shared infrastructure and logistics network.
Achieving the goals and aspirations reflected above is a joint responsibility of home and host countries, governments and private sector, civil society and labour, shareholders and investors, consumers and local communities, current and future generations, to name a few, for which we all need a sustainable development licence to operate that recognizes planetary boundaries and is anchored on a quadruple bottom line approach, where success is measured on economic gains, social responsibility, environmental stewardship, and good governance imperatives.
This also requires an ecosystem for transformational change and leadership that links all relevant dots and actors together, fostering concerted, deliberate, well-targeted, and urgent action at scale on many fronts. A case, partially at least, of Eric Maskin’s mechanism design, I would argue!
Distinguished Ladies and gentlemen
As indicated in the Nairobi Declaration adopted in the 2023 Africa Climate Summit, our endowments on critical energy transition minerals can position the continent to become a global powerhouse for climate action and investments.
The renewables push is both critical and strategic as the pursuit of development anchored on these resources is particularly important not only for industrialization and transformation, but to power the agriculture sector, to address climate change and food insecurity, power industry to support beneficiation and value addition, and anchor the creation of sustainable jobs to address unemployment and poverty.
I look forward to the outcomes of our deliberations and to principles that underscore the importance of a just and equitable transition.
Thank you.