Ensuring Transition Mining Doesn't Replicate Abuses of the Past: Voices from Communities (COP27 Event)

CSO Pavilion, People Power Room, Sanafir Hotel

Ending the use of fossil fuels is essential to avoiding the worst impacts of climate change. The transition to 100 percent renewable energy will require minerals for technologies, including solar panels, wind turbines and storage. Without adequate social and environmental safeguards, this transition could result in a new wave of green extractivism that abuses human rights and destroys the environment.
 
This conversation involved community leaders on the frontlines of mining for minerals for the energy transition. They shared their experiences about the transition’s impacts on human rights and the environment and what needs to be done at the community level, by industries, governments and society as a whole to consider the type and level of extraction that is actually needed for the energy transition.
 


Panelists included:

• Nsama Chikwanka, National Coordinator, PWYP Zambia
• Edson Krenak Naknanuk, Indigenous activist, Brazil Lead, Cultural Survival
• Silas Olan'g,  Africa Energy Transition Advisor, Natural Resource Governance Institute
• Ketakandriana Rafitoson, Executive Director, Transparency International - Madagascar
• Lesley Muñoz Rivera, activist from the community of Copiapó, Chile; member, Observatorio Plurinacional de Salares Andinos

Organized by Earthworks, BHRRC, PWYP, London Mining Network, War on Want, Oxfam America and NRGI.