CONTENTS

1. Introduction

2. Green transition narratives: A false dichotomy

– The market capture of climate action by the mining industry
– Transition minerals is different from critical minerals

3. Yes to Life: Yes to transformations based on justice and care

– What do we mean by a real Just Transition?
– Right to Say No
– Alternatives to growth
– Rights of Nature
– Buen Vivir

Conclusion: Towards Just Transitions of and for People and Nature

1. Introduction

Thirty years since the first UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP), and thirty-three since the Earth Summit in Rio de

Janeiro, Brazil, global greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere continue to rise, and the sixth mass extinction of species continues apace. There is increasing evidence that  an alarming 1.5C degrees of global warming may be unavoidable to breach, and that we may be close to, or even past planetary tipping points previously thought of as remote or distant.  

All over the world, as we write, indigenous people and grassroots communities are leading on solutions, campaigns and alternative movements for addressing the climate crisis. 

Yet, grassroots communities are often disproportionately targeted by those who seek to maintain the status quo. Grassroots social and environmental movements have long been seen as threats to capitalist and colonialist power structures. Neoliberal tools are used to justify state-led oppressions in the name of protecting investment and economic growth. In both the Global North and South, Indigenous and environmental defenders are increasingly being branded by state governments and corporations as “terrorists” and threatened with lawfare for opposing extractive projects. 

Global multilateral organisations and international climate mitigation frameworks fail to address human rights violations in the name of the green energy transition because of an entrenched, globalised power dynamic which favours the industrialised Global North and its economic interests. The creation of sacrifice zones is considered to be an acceptable side effect of the big business model of climate mitigation, and people defending their lands are seen as obstacles to states and corporations wanting to benefit from the vast profit-making system that is the green energy market.

This intense power inequality is evident at the various annual COP summits. At the recent COP30 in Belém, Brazil, Indigenous people were given only a token presence inside, while the stage was dominated by green market proponents and fossil fuel lobbyists. Outside, protesting land defenders seeking real climate justice were repelled by military police. Meanwhile, powerful transnational banks and corporations not only were given centre stage to air their greenwash, but largely funded the event. Vale, the world’s third biggest mining company, was one of COP30’s major sponsors, while event organisers were eerily silent on the company’s catastrophic environmental and human rights record, which includes the deaths of 270 people in the Brumadinho dam collapse in Brazil in 2019 and 19 people in Mariana in 2015. 

The COP30 in Belém 2025, also featured the highest-ever participation of fossil fuel lobbyists, as well as an undue presence of companies who are complicit in the destruction of or actively destroying the Amazon. This is clearly not representative of the kind of climate justice action the world needs in order to address runaway global warming. 

Grassroots movements and land defenders have their work cut out in fighting not only localised struggles against mining and extractivism, but their governments (from local to national level), legal systems, transnational corporations, multilateral trade deals, and the entire global system of neoliberal capitalism. The communities impacted most by mining expansions for “transition minerals” are predominantly those already long marginalised by capitalism and colonialism: indigenous communities and those in the Global South. 

We need to challenge this dominant story of the inevitability of extractive expansion and economic growth in the name of “development and progress”. A key way to achieve this is to ensure that Global South communities and Indigenous Peoples are the leaders of climate action and are framing the narrative of the green transition. This includes the amplification of alternatives to mining and extractivism, and empowering post-extractive paradigms of global justice.

2. Green transition narratives: A false dichotomy

The fingerprint is clear. The scientific grounds for a connection between carbon dioxide and heating of the planet was already established in the 19th century. Modern data has been available since the 1960s, and the consensus in public science on global warming was reached by the 1980s. As early as the 1950s some corporate actors were well aware of the potential effects of fossil fuels in particular, to which they responded with decades of covering up, denial, and delay, continuing to this day. Major corporations and state-owned entities have not only actively opposed and blocked needed action, but used this time to relentlessly expand extraction and bring the Earth to the brink. All the while, we witness an increasing succession of “extreme weather events” – indeed, weather events amplified by climate change – testify that we are already in a climate breakdown.

CO2 emissions are linked to the majority of industries prominent in modern society, including energy production, transportation, data technologies, and defence. Successive IPCC reports have made it clear that anthropogenic GHG emissions are the biggest driver of global warming, and therefore the vast bulk of climate policy efforts are directed at reducing these emissions in order to keep global warming below the target of 1.5॰C as defined by the Paris Agreement.

Both historically and currently, the uneven distribution of carbon emissions amongst countries is staggering, and the gap is even larger based on income. In 2023, China, the U.S. and India together accounted for 42.6% of the world’s emissions. The patterns of historical cumulative carbon emissions closely overlap with colonial and imperialist powers, with those of the U.S. and the E.U. countries only approached by China’s rapid expansion in the 21st century. Even more dramatic is the uneven parceling of consumption emissions based on income, where carbon emissions of the richest one percent are estimated to be more than double than those of the poorer half of humanity. The world’s top billionaires may emit more carbon in 90 minutes than the average person does in a lifetime. Many of these ultra-rich are actively lobbying or selling their own “climate solutions,” while personally continuing to emit exorbitant amounts of carbon. The undue influence that many of these persons have on governments is coming into plain view. 

In July 2025, the International Court of Justice provided the advisory opinion that states are not only obliged to protect the planet from greenhouse gas emissions, but may also be held legally liable if they fail to do so, including loss and damage claims, and reparations. 

While it is objectively true that we need to decarbonise our economy, doing this for the purposes of defending and growing business-as-usual (rather than a moral imperative to meet Paris Agreement targets) is highly problematic. We encounter a situation where the central objective of decarbonisation is not saving the planet for future generations of life. The goal of current hegemonic “transition” strategies to reach net zero is primarily to maintain economic growth and the conditions for big business to thrive. 

Most negotiations in recent COP summits and associated finance are directed towards technological solutions and the build-up of lower-carbon technologies, i.e. climate mitigation within the business-as-usual model. This is the most favoured and financed path by states, banks and corporations and is seen as the highest-priority mode of climate action. In contrast, there is comparatively little international finance being directed towards adaptation (measures to manage risk and facilitate adjustment to actual and future climate impacts such as extreme weather events, sea-level rise and food insecurity). The United Nations Environment Program estimates that adaptation receives 10-20 times less finance than needed! While financially favoured, the mitigation pathway on the table does not challenge the economic system and in fact just props it up by commodifying climate action. 

Mainstream narratives of climate action are thus embedded in the assumption that economic growth and material expansion are the primary societal and developmental goals. These assumptions are based on models of resource scarcity, where resources that once belonged to all must be enclosed and controlled by a hierarchical system with the richest and most powerful at the top. The narratives of the so-called “green transition” were created by institutions based in the Global North to guide the corralling of finite global resources into maintaining economic growth and the lifestyles of the world’s richest.

This has in turn led to the current dominant narrative that we need to harvest vast amounts of so-called critical minerals, such as lithium, copper, nickel, cobalt and rare earths, to fuel the transition to net zero carbon. This has sparked a frenzy in the mining sector to open up and expand projects. 

We are being led to believe that we have a stark choice: fossil fuels or ‘critical minerals’. More specifically, solving the climate crisis means changing fossil fuels for renewable energy – and to do that we need to extract more (and more) minerals, and slowly “phasing-out” fossil fuels. In simple words: to save the planet already ravaged by centuries of exploitation we need to sacrifice more communities and more nature. 

We are now at a record high of fossil fuel consumption.¹ Meanwhile, and on the back of this false narrative of climate action, metal and mineral mining has also been continually increasing, even faster than fossil fuels. Fossil fuel, minerals extraction and processing companies are all continuing to rake in the profits in spite of and also on the back of the climate crisis.² Therefore we can see that the extraction of minerals for the “green energy transition” is not replacing fossil fuels – in fact, it is an add-on: fossil fuels PLUS. 

This can be observed by looking at the list of the highest greenhouse gas emitters.³ Despite the fact that the greatest percentage of surplus carbon emissions lies with the big oil and gas producers, many of the places among the top 100 cumulative emitters are held by what are considered metal and mineral mining companies due to their digging of coal (e.g. Anglo American, Rio Tinto, Vale, Glencore). Meanwhile most of these companies continue to operate at full speed and proclaim themselves as “essential” to the transition. 

Even more strikingly, the value supply chains of the big metal and mineral companies are also the cause of major emissions due to materials which are energy-intensive in their extraction and processing, such as iron, copper, lithium, aluminium/bauxite etc. And these analyses do not take into account the plethora of other environmental and community impacts associated with mining. Major mining companies have been and continue to be “leaders” in climate breakdown, as opposed to climate action, which is what their public relations campaigns want us to believe.

The market capture of climate action by the mining industry

The narrative that mining is essential for climate action is a lie which is propagated most of all by companies and the industry which supports them. Mining expansions in the name of “green transition” are not, in fact, driven by altruism or genuine care for people and environment, but by market factors – namely, the rising values of key minerals and the geopolitical competition to control supply chains. 

Most of the key metals required for electrification of energy production (e.g. lithium, copper, nickel, cobalt and rare earths – the so-called battery metals, for electric vehicles) have seen rapid stock price rises in recent years. “Green Transition” mining is lucrative, and this has fuelled widespread greenwashing tactics in the industry. As companies seek supply chains and investors in green energy industries, their websites are filled with bold statements promoting their commitments to sourcing minerals for green energy solutions. Transnational corporate insurance firms like BlackRock now actively seek investment in green energy supply chains, while major mining companies such as  Rio Tinto and BHP have reinvented themselves as key producers of high-value “transition” minerals like lithium and copper.

The public relations campaigns of mining companies often focus on “environmental, social and governance” (ESG) standards which, far from guiding companies’ conduct on the ground, tend to serve as greenwashing tools to attract investors and serve political agendas. While there are some token industry efforts to monitor environmental and social impacts in mineral supply chains, these have resulted in things like “certification standards” schemes which, far from increasing due diligence, can further justify the greenwashing of companies while hiding their unjust and destructive activities from the public eye. Furthermore, the governmental policies that were brought to life to accompany the energy transition are being weakened and rolled back in line with the reduction of state powers tendencies.4

Transition minerals is different from critical minerals

The term ‘critical minerals’ is often confused with ‘transition minerals’, with the two terms used interchangeably in the media. But there is a distinction. “Transition minerals” refers specifically to minerals used in renewable technologies, including EVs. Meanwhile ‘critical minerals’  is a broader term referring to minerals which are prioritised by governments or multilateral institutions because of their use in technologies and several other sectors that have key economic importance in a certain place, at a certain moment. 

Only a limited amount of ‘critical minerals’ is destined for so-called low-carbon technologies. Over half the minerals designated as critical in the UK play “no major role” in the green transition, while one in five play “no role” even in the IEA’s net-zero scenario, and that in fact, no extra mining is needed to keep the planet under 1,5॰C degrees of warming. 

Government “critical minerals” strategies and policies are increasingly prioritising minerals for defence and national securityーin other words, warーover real climate action. Lithium, cobalt, nickel and rare earth metals are used in the manufacturing of weapons, including missiles, submarines and fighter jets. This means not only devastation and death for those populations targeted by wars and genocides, but also massive profits for the global arms industry. In 2023, the arms industry pocketed 632 billion U.S. dollars, and that is not counting what has been made from the genocide in Gaza, conflicts in Ukraine, Yemen, Sudan, the DRC and other places, and the Trump-led increase by NATO countries to raise their percentage spending of GDP on ‘defence and security’ to 5%.

Learn more in YLNM Position Paper on mining and militarisation.

In sum, mining is not climate action, mineral mining is not replacing fossil fuels, and the minerals mined are mainly not going to renewable energy technologies; they are going into weapons of war and other profit-making ventures of the capitalist system. The result of this dynamic is the disempowerment, and even erasure, of the voices of communities who say “No” to mining projects due to the impacts and risks of extractive activities on their lands, water, health and livelihoods.

3. Yes to Life: Yes to transformations based on justice and care

What do we mean by a real Just Transition?

The United Nations defines a just transition as a framework “to ensure that no one is left behind in the shift to a low-carbon economy,” (UNEPFI) focusing largely on protecting workers and communities affected by the transition away from fossil fuels. While this framing recognises the need for social protection and job creation, it misses a critical truth: the crisis we face is not simply one of energy, but of extraction and exploitation. A just transition cannot be limited to swapping one set of extractive industries for another – e.g. swapping fossil fuel cars with battery-powered engines. The above definition of “just transition” in fact ends up perpetuating the colonial logic of green extractivism, justifying taking from Indigenous lands, displacing communities, poisoning water, and eroding biodiversity in the name of economic progress.

Right to Say No

Communities choose to say no to mining for many reasons – see our position paper ‘Why we say NO to mining’ for elaboration with examples. All communities have the right to say no to mining. All communities have the right to defend their territories, livelihoods and the wellbeing of the people and the earth. 

We stand in solidarity with local communities resisting extractivism and uphold their right to decide in respect of all decisions that affect their lands, waters, and futures. This includes autonomy, self-determination, and territorial sovereignty of Indigenous peoples everywhere, and affirm the right of all communities to protect and care for their territories according to their own values and knowledge systems.

Alternatives to growth

One of the core elements of the environmental breakdown which has been articulated is the insistence of capitalism on unbridled economic growth. The concept of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the key driver of economic and political “development” has been criticised by generations of activists and scholars, in particular those rooted in the Global South. In the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report, space is given to discussing post-growth alternative economies, and even the  European Environment Agency has taken note of this.  These turns come at the heels of substantial research criticising the idea of “decoupling” growth from negative environmental impacts, in other words, “green growth.” 

Building on the legacies of developmental critique and ecofeminist economics, a growing number of proposals such as degrowth, post-growth, and post-development have taken shape.  The degrowth discussion, in particular, is broad and varied, incorporating a wide variety of strategies and proposals; this is arguably a vital space for discussion and coordination between movements of the global South and North. This is significant, as the concept of  “degrowth” is based on an internationalist justice-based perspective, and sheds special light on the necessity for the world’s most affluent regions and classes to reduce their (over)consumption and to tackle the “unequal ecological exchange” (extraction) of materials and labour from the poorer regions of the world.  Because the concept of degrowth presents a clear challenge to hegemonic economic logic of the Global North, it is kept mostly absent from local to international policy discussions around climate mitigation and adaptation, where these exist. Meanwhile, grassroots movements take the lead in promoting it.

Unfortunately the degrowth movement has come up against criticism from the mainstream posturing that the concept sounds negative, or sounds like deprivation. This is indeed a misconception or even deliberate misinterpretation, however to counter this there have been emerging concepts that frame an alternative economy in more explicitly positive terms. For instance, the Wellbeing Economy Alliance defines a Wellbeing economy as one that ‘puts our human and planetary needs at the centre of its activities, ensuring that these needs are all equally met, by default.’ The Scottish government has been an advocate for this kind of economy and have produced a Wellbeing economy toolkit. 

Community Wealth Building (CWB)  is another concept which takes locally rooted institutions (eg. the health service) and encourages procurement from local small businesses and cooperatives, keeping wealth circulating within the local economy. Fair employment and just labour markets as well as plural ownership of the economy and fair finance are some of CWB’s principles. It is now being implemented locally and regionally in various continents, mostly in the Global North. 

The framing of the economy as a doughnut, with a social floor and an ecological ceiling, was first developed by Kate Raworth. The floor ensures everyone’s needs are met, and the ceiling ensures we do not overshoot and destabilise the life-supporting systems that sustain life on Earth. Doughnut Economics has become widely influential due to the simplified portrayal of a world that is both socially just and ecologically sound, however there has been much work done to flesh out the concept. One principle particularly relevant to our topic is: aim to thrive rather than grow.

It can’t be stressed enough that degrowth exposes the fact that the starting point for just transitions are vastly unequal. Centuries of plunder of labour, resources and lives have “de-developed” many regions in the Global South. Thus, financial and technological transfer is key for any justice-based ways forward. For example, riding on decades of work on ‘ecological debt’, the Debt for Climate movement demands cancellation of illegitimate debt in the global South as essential to a just and sustainable future. Even on the UNFCCC level, through leadership of the Alliance of Small Island States, a Fund for Loss and Damage has been established. While its financial scope is at the moment quite limited, it is a formal and moral recognition of the debt of the richer parts of the world.

Rights of Nature

The Rights of Nature movement is founded upon the recognition that Nature is “an indivisible living community of interrelated and interdependent beings with inherent rights” (Barlow 2024). The concept gained global attention in 2008 when Ecuador defined nature in its constitution as a living being (Pacha Mama) with rights to “exist, persist and thrive”. Despite challenges, Ecuador’s groundbreaking laws have been used in several successful cases, perhaps the most consequential of which was a 2021 Constitutional Court ruling barring a Canadian mining company from operating in the Los Cedros forest reserve after an intensive local and international campaign (Yes to Life No to Mining, 2025). The Los Cedros case was the first in Ecuador to challenge constitutional laws regarding the right to juridical protection for companies and investments. At a deeper level, the court win for the forest affirms that nature is intrinsically valuable regardless of whether it can be monetized.

The Rights of Nature movement currently spreads across 40 countries, and champions visions and toolkits which challenge the colonial extractive power hegemony in both Global South and North. In Ecuador, the Kichwa Indigenous authority of Sarayaku has formalised the Kawsak Sacha (Living Forest) declaration, which denotes the forest as a unitary living entity with rights (Kauffman et al, 2025). This is recognised as a foundational model of ecological jurisprudence which has helped the Sarayaku defend their land from oil exploitation and provided tools for struggles elsewhere. In so-called Australia, Rights of Nature concepts are being reframed by First Nations in terms of defining what a right relationship with Country could look like for settlers, and respecting First Nations peoples’ laws and ecologically sustainable custodianship of land and sea over millennia (Australian Earth Laws Centre, 2025).

Rights of Nature, alongside other forms of ecological jurisprudence such as Ecocide laws, is emerging as an integral part of a Just Transition. According to the Women’s Environmental and Climate Network, “Integrating Rights of Nature into the vision, architecture, and practice of a Just Transition is vital to addressing the root causes of the climate crisis, rejecting false solutions, and restoring harmonious relationships with the Earth.” (WECAN, 2025). 

In December 2022 Rights of Nature was included in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, an international agreement adopted to halt and reverse biodiversity loss (GBF, 2022). In May 2025, it was included in an Advisory Opinion of the Interamerican Court of Human Rights on climate change and human rights, which was commissioned by Colombia and Chile – countries where both the climate crisis and the “green transition” industry response has disproportionately affected Indigenous peoples in particular. It states: “Recognition of Nature’s right to maintain its essential ecological processes contributes to the consolidation of a truly sustainable development model that respects planetary boundaries and ensures the availability of vital resources for present and future generations.”

At the COP30, the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN) convened the third part of its 6th International Tribunal, concluding with the presentation of the policy document, A New Pledge for Mother Nature, which calls for justice for Earth and her defenders. This followed a 2024 event in Toronto themed The Impacts of Mining and the Post-Extractive Era, held at the same time as the massive Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) trade fair. The juxtaposition of events was deliberate: to highlight the damage done by Canadian mining companies, to challenge the hegemony that maintains impunity for these companies, and to roadmap a post-extractive vision (GARN, 2025).

Buen Vivir

Buen Vivir, or Sumak Kawsay, is an Indigenous Andean philosophy for living in harmony with the living world. Buen Vivir, or ‘living well,’ (sumak kawsay in Kichwa/Quechua) is an Indigenous Andean philosophy for living in harmony with the living world. Other peoples hold similar concepts: Ñandereko, Küme Mongen, Suma Qamaña, Ubuntu, Swaraj, right relationship. 

The Latin American post-extractivist philosopher, Eduardo Gudynas, describes Buen Vivir as a radically biocentric position, which recognises intrinsic values in the environment and dissolves the fundamental concept of duality between humans and nature which underpin extractive economies. 

In Latin America, Buen Vivir has emerged in various forms in the Indigenous, political and social movements of several countries including Ecuador, Bolivia, Uruguay, Chile and Peru. Buen Vivir principles have been enshrined in the constitutions of Ecuador and Bolivia. In Bolivia it is an ethical framework rooted in Indigenous Aymara concepts of harmonious living. In Ecuador, the concept is translated into a set of constitutional rights, which were built into the 2008 constitution by a National Assembly representing Indigenous Nations and left-wing social movements. 

It could be said that the expressions of alternative economies and Rights of Nature are modern ways of expressing ancient ways of being. Yet we need to translate ‘right relationship’ into our own contexts in order to transition justly to a world that nurtures people, place and planet.

Conclusion: Towards Just Transitions of and for People and Nature

We stand with communities asserting that we cannot mine our way out of the climate crisis. Extractivism, whether fossil or mineral, is incompatible with justice, care, and regeneration. Real solutions lie in post-extractive economies: those rooted in reciprocity, collective stewardship, Indigenous knowledge systems, and the restoration of damaged lands and waters. A just transition, in this sense, is not about sustaining the industrial growth model, but about sustaining life.

Finally, we echo the call issued by indigenous and traditional communities of the Amazon from Belém of Pará to everyone fighting for justice around the world: “A Resposta Somos Nós” (“The Answer is Us”)! Ending this destructive system and socio-ecologically transforming our societies will either be led by the affected and frontline communities, in respect of the Rights of Nature and Buen Vivir, breaking free from the growth-based economy, or these transitions will be neither just nor sustainable. False transitions are and will be firmly opposed and resisted. Our ‘no’ is clear, and we stand for the right to have that ‘no’ respected. But there are many ‘yeses’, many transitions and many transformations. We hold space for those ‘yeses’ to exist, persist, regenerate and thrive.

Endnotes

1.  In 1980, when governments and industry were being made aware of the effects of burning fossil fuel on our world, the annual consumption of coal, oil and gas sat at 70,683 TWh (TWh = one terawatt-hour, or one trillion watt-hours). In 2024, after 29 climate COPS and post-Paris Agreement, annual consumption had not only continued but increased by the same amount again – to a massive 142,421 TWh (Our World In Data). 

2. In 2025 the mining industry (including metals and coal) made a mammoth global profit of 863 billion U.S. dollars.

3.  It has been estimated that 71% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the period 1988-2015 can be traced to just 100 corporate and government entities.

4.  This has happened for example in recent days in the European Union, with the Supply Chain Act (Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive CSDDD and Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive CSRD ), just a few months after it was passed; in Argentina with the laws that protected glaciers being threatened to allow mining; in New Zealand with new fast-track laws that remove the need to consult Indigenous and local communities, and in many other places around the world.