UN experts urge global tracking system for critical minerals

UN experts called Wednesday for the creation of a global system to trace the extraction and production of critical minerals that are needed in the transition away from fossil fuels.

The massive effort to develop renewable energy, essential in the fight against climate change, requires minerals and metals such as copper, cadmium, nickel and lithium, necessary for power sources from electric vehicle batteries to solar panels and more.

Demand for such materials will quadruple by 2040 as nations race to limit global warming to +1.5 Celsius, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has estimated.

The experts are part of a UN committee set up in April by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to draw up guardrails in the face of the looming energy revolution, and called for the new system to avoid over-exploitation and environmental destruction.

They include representatives from non-governmental organizations, mining and environment ministries in various countries.

In a report released Wednesday, they put forward seven guiding principles.

They include: putting human rights at the heart of the production chain; protecting the integrity of the planet; and ensuring that benefits are shared.

More concretely, the experts, citing disparate existing initiatives, recommended the establishment of "global traceability, transparency and accountability framework along the entire mineral value chain -– from mining to recycling."

They called for the system to provide an independent assessment of the environmental and social performance of companies involved in the trade -- for example, their respect for human and labor rights, levels of corruption, level of greenhouse gas emissions, and so on.

They also suggested the creation of a global fund, financed by governments and companies, to fund the aftermath of mining operations -- particularly land rehabilitation and support for local communities.

And, with the IEA fearing global supplies of such minerals are running out, the UN experts also called for investment in innovation and recycling to reduce the quantities needed.

The NGO coalition Climate Action Network, represented on the committee, welcomed the report.

But there "is still a long way to go in making these principles a reality," its director, Tasneem Essop, said in a statement.

Too often, "production of these minerals leaves a toxic cloud in its wake: pollution; wounded communities, childhoods lost to labor and sometimes dying in their work," Guterres said when he announced the committee in April.

Developing countries and communities have also not reaped the benefits of their production, he said, adding: "This must change."