Presentation of Andy Whitmore, researcher specialising in extractive industries and indigenous peoples rights, at the webinar "A Material Transition: Mining and the Renewable Energy Transition".

1. A Material Transition:
Supply & Demand Solutions for
Renewable Energy Minerals
AIDA webinar - A Material Transition
16 July 2021
Andy Whitmore
Report author & Co-chair, London Mining Network
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2. London Mining Network
● Aim: A just future based on a lower demand for mining and on respect
for human rights and ecological justice where mining does take place
● Currently 21 groups who are members of the Network
● London is the world’s biggest centre for investment in the minerals
industry, and 4 of 5 biggest mining companies in world based here
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4. We can’t mine our way out of the climate crisis
● This is a ‘materials crisis’ not an ‘energy
crisis’
● Key actors, including the mining industry
are promoting a shift from ‘black to green’
● The new frontier of ‘green extractivism’
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5. Transition minerals
● Minerals for hardware – like wind
turbines solar panels, motors
(steel, aluminium, rare earths)
● Minerals for battery storage -
lithium, nickel, cobalt
● Minerals for transmission –
copper
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7. Solidarity with community struggles
● Communities in struggle are often
showing us the way (buen vivir)
● We need to support their FPIC /
‘right to say no’
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8. Supply side solutions
● Various laws, standards and
initiatives that are meant to help
● Must be coordination and
inclusion of affected people
● Must be mandatory compliance –
mandatory human rights due
diligence
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9. Demand side solutions
● This is about our own consumption – more structural than personal
● We rapidly need to shift to a ‘circular economy’, reducing the need for
new resource extraction
● However, it is not enough to switch to green growth. We need a radical
reduction of unsustainable consumption:- a ‘circular society’
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11. What is needed
● A global effort to bring together those most affected by the problems
at the heart of transition minerals – focusing on:-
● International solidarity with those impacted by transition minerals
● Advance initiatives to ensure fair and just global supply chains
● Fundamental societal change to reduce unsustainable material
consumption
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12. Thank you
MEPs have voted to push for legally-binding
targets to reduce resource use by 2030 and bring
EU consumption within planetary boundaries by
2050
Report: https://waronwant.org/resources/a-
material-transition
For further details, email: whit@gn.apc.org
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