11th Meeting of the Global Council for Responsible Transition Minerals
27 August 2026 (online)
Participants
Global Council for Responsible Transition Minerals
Adnan Z. Amin, former Director-General of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)
Bruno Oberle (co-chair), former Director of the International Union for Conservation of Nature
Glen Mpufane, Executive Director of GM Mining ESG Consulting
Izabella Teixeira, Co-Chair of the International Resource Panel
Juan Carlos Jobet, former Minister of Energy and Mining of Chile; Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University
Kadri Simson, former European Commissioner for Energy
Ma Jun, Director of the Chinese Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs
Sheila Khama, Non-Executive Director, FTSE and NASDAQ
Guest Speakers, Special Advisors and Observers
Angela Asuncion, Resource Justice Network
Sascha Markus Raabe, Head of the Secretariat, UNIDO Global Alliance for Responsible and Green Minerals
Zainab Usman, Senior Research Scholar and Managing Director, Energy for Development Program, Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University (representing Jason Bordoff)
Paris Peace Forum Secretariat
Clémence Contensou, Head of the Transition Minerals Initiative, Paris Peace Forum
Maëlle Lécureuil, Policy Officer, Transition Minerals Initiative, Paris Peace Forum
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Update from the Secretariat
New leadership has taken up its posts at the Paris Peace Forum, with Franck Paris now in place as Director General and Elise Ford as Deputy Director General. Justin Vaïsse will remain engaged in the activities of the Forum, now as the President of the Forum’s Endowment Fund.
The Forum’s Spring Meeting in Rabat in June was a good opportunity to share the Global Council’s Policy note “G7+ Pathways for Financing Responsible Transition Minerals Value Chains”, notably through a roundtable which gathered 3 members of the Global Council, the French interministerial delegate for mineral supply Benjamin Gallezot, and nearly 15 other participants. The paper was also presented and shared with relevant stakeholders, including with Morocco's Minister of Energy Transition, Leila Benali.
The G7 leaders’ declaration on securing supply chains for critical minerals, released shortly after, converged with several Council positions: on mobilizing public and private capital, improving market structuration, and enhancing transparency and traceability. However, its framing remains primarily centered on reducing dependency and ensuring resilience of G7 and “like-minded countries”. The Declaration also announced the creation of a Critical Minerals Resilience and Production Alliance.
The Global Council's next engagement will be the 9th Paris Peace Forum (November 10-11), a G7-labelled edition, bringing a more multilateral perspective to discussion on minerals. The next Global Council meeting will be held in person on the sidelines of the Paris Peace Forum.
Presenting Relevant Initiatives for Synergies
UNIDO's Global Alliance for Responsible and Green Minerals
The Global Alliance for Responsible and Green Minerals, led by UNIDO is a multi-stakeholder initiative aiming at promoting responsible minerals value chains, through win-win partnerships between producing and importing countries, local value addition, benefit-sharing and diversification – with a focus on high ESG standards implementation. Membership spans governments, trade unions, companies, and NGOs. Activities include technical cooperation projects, a knowledge management facility and ESG benchmark – all this done in cooperation with other global initiatives and in coordination with the broader UNIDO Secretariat. Its first project, funded by the GIZ, is the Cobalt for Development Initiative in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, aiming at formalizing the artisanal and small-scale mining sector.
The Alliance is independent from, but works closely with the United Nations Secretary General’s Initiative on Critical Energy Transition Minerals and its resulting Task Force. UNIDO is a co-lead for the implementation of recommendation 1 on value addition and provides support to the work on traceability/transparency as well as on artisanal and small-scale mining. Additionally, a country-level support mechanism was announced for the implementation of Panel recommendations. The Task Force met at the occasion of the United Nations High-Level Meeting on Critical Energy Transition Minerals, held in New York in July 2026. However, it was cautioned that the lack of financing may significantly affect the outcome of UN engagements.
CGEP and Rockefeller’s High-Level Panel on Universal Energy Abundance
CGEP presented the High-Level Panel on Universal Energy Abundance, which includes three Global Council members are also members. Developed with the Rockefeller Foundation, the Panel is a two-year initiative bringing together senior leaders to explore strategies for achieving universal energy abundance and to accelerate investment in energy systems that support economic development and human prosperity. While the term "energy abundance" has at times been used domestically in the US as an argument for oil and gas expansion, or as a synonym for "energy dominance," the Panel aims at reflecting the need to move beyond narrower metrics of "energy access" or "affordability," which fail to capture the role energy plays in industrialization, structural economic transformation and broader prosperity. Its next convening will be held in October, in India.
Recent Developments and Defining the Global Council’s Priorities
US Critical Minerals Strategy
The growing trend of resource nationalism, particularly in the United States, was flagged as a central feature of recent developments in mineral value chain governance. This shift also underpins the broader internationalization of US critical minerals industrial policy: the US remains import-reliant on 32 minerals designated critical by the US Geological Survey, and China is a supplier of 14 of these.
Domestically, three types of tools are being deployed: i) regulatory reform to fast-track permitting; ii) financial instruments, including tax incentives, subsidies and direct equity stakes in mining companies; and iii) trade measures, such as the IRA's sourcing requirements and tariffs on steel, aluminum and copper - although critical minerals have largely been exempted from the Liberation Day tariffs.
Members raised concerns over the current state of corporate ESG performance in this resource nationalism context, describing the situation as a return to a “Wild West”. Members pointed to the broader rollback of ESG and climate-related disclosure requirements in the US, while noting that companies may continue to maintain voluntary standards in response to investor and customer expectations.
Because domestic measures have hit geological and economic limits, some tools are now being extended internationally through bilateral deals. The six deals announced so far - with Ukraine, the DRC, Australia, Japan, Malaysia and Thailand - have been studied by the Center on Global Energy Policy (see The International Trade Dimensions of the United States Critical Minerals Security Strategy, Zainab Usman), which distinguishes three types of agreements: i) security-related agreements, ii) framework agreements, and iii) MOUs tied to parallel trade talks. Novel components have emerged across these deals, notably an explicit priority for US persons and entities in licensing, permitting and asset acquisition, and clauses (called "poison pills") requiring partner countries to consult the US before engaging third-country investors or buyers.
Discussions highlighted the risk that these dynamics could contribute to an increasingly bloc-based global trading system, while narrowing the policy space available to producer countries seeking to develop their own mineral value chains.
Seabed Mining
Growing pressure for seabed mining, especially from the US, could significantly reshape supply security and scarcity dynamics. The International Seabed Authority (ISA) has been trying to reach consensus on a Mining Code, which if adopted, would lead the way for deep-sea mining activities. In 2025, a US executive order opened license review outside the International Seabed Authority (ISA) framework. The Metals Company, known to be the first company to submit an application under this executive order, claims the area in the Pacific they applied to could, if granted, significantly supply the US with cobalt and manganese for the coming decades.
While recognizing the importance of this discussion for mineral supply, the Global Council raised concerns over environmental and social implications of this growing pressure. It was noted that treaty frameworks, including the ISA proposed Mining Code, do include environmental protection for the marine environment, and that some emerging technologies show elements of environmental safeguards, though real questions remain about their scalability. Seabed mining's viability ultimately depends on genuine environmental and social safeguards rather than technological readiness alone - the technology being largely ready but not yet proven to be socially and environmentally sound - which is why the code has yet to be adopted under the International Seabed Authority.
Minerals at the Heart of Geopolitical Shifts
The Global Council underlined that these different shifts (US industrial policy, bilateral deals, seabed mining) are symptoms of a broader shift in the global order. It was argued that the discussion was fundamentally geopolitical rather than a narrow trade or minerals-supply question: for decades, neoliberal economics – IMF and the World Bank - had discouraged developing countries from pursuing industrial policy of their own, while now more powerful countries are embracing the very tools developing countries were long told to avoid. This geopolitical shift was situated within a broader political context that places greater emphasis on security, energy and geopolitics at the expense of climate change objectives.
In this context, it was suggested that one of the Global Council’s contributions to the 9th edition of the Forum could be convening a coalition of the willing for a multilateral agreement on mineral resources – open to countries that wish to opt in.
