
OUR WORK
​​In November 2024, the Global Council for Responsible Transition Minerals, building on these five streams, released a first set of seven recommendations in an interim report, setting the roadmap for their work in 2025.
THE GLOBAL COUNCIL'S
Interim report
After six months of work, the members of the Global Council for Responsible Transition Minerals, an independent and high-level multistakeholder initiative launched by the Paris Peace Forum in June of this year, adopted a set of recommendations to advance global cooperation across sectors and regions in securing responsible mineral supply for the energy transition. Taking stock of the heightened demand for energy transition minerals to meet Paris Agreement goals and reach net-zero targets, the recommendations emphasize integrated and collaborative approaches across climate, industrial and mineral multilateral strategies. They also call for enhanced global governance tools and the exploration of value-creation opportunities.
FIVE THEMES
The Global Council works to propose collaborative solutions on five streams: Tackling the Global Fragmentation of Multilateral Efforts, Advancing International Cooperation for Financing Responsible Mining, Fostering Value Creation for Mineral-Rich Countries, Enhancing Transparency in Mineral Markets, Ensuring Social and Environmental Sustainability in Mineral Supply Chains.
ADDRESSING THE FRAGMENTATION OF MULTILATERAL APPROACHES ON TRANSITION MINERALS
Despite numerous United Nations agencies and international organizations working to address the various challenges related to the supply of transition minerals critical for the energy transition, the fragmentation of efforts has led to significant challenges such as a lack of coordination and information exchange and inadequate capacity.


RESHAPING MINERAL MARKET FOR GLOBAL TRADE
Mineral markets present unique challenges due to their size, lack of transparency, and complex trade practices. Despite growing demand, the market for transition minerals remains relatively small and fragmented, with limited liquidity and transparency. Market concentration among a few key players exacerbates vulnerabilities to geopolitical shocks and export restrictions.
CREATING AND LEVERAGING OPPORTUNITIES FOR MINERAL-RICH COUNTRIES
Increasing demand for transition minerals is perceived by many resource-rich countries as a new opportunity to boost revenue and advance towards industrialization. While these resources present substantial economic opportunities, countries often remain limited to raw material extraction due to infrastructure, investment, and governance challenges and/or market dynamics which do not support the emergence of new or localized clusters of operations.


INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION FOR FINANCING RESPONSIBLE MINING
Mining finance is driven by specialist capital concentrated in a small number of financial centers and has shrunk dramatically over the last decade in Western markets. Attracting non-specialist finance to mining is proving extremely difficult due to the sector’s challenges including commodity pricing cyclicality and volatility, operations’ long lead times and increasing costs, ESG risks and their reputational impacts, and geopolitical uncertainty exacerbating concentration risks.
ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY ALL ALONG THE SUPPLY CHAIN
Increasing demand for minerals essential to the energy transition means we will need to rely on mining and mineral industries more than ever in the future. Current efforts for strengthened sustainability along mineral supply chains are abundant: numerous voluntary industry standards exist, as well as efforts to strengthen due diligence and circularity at all levels of the supply chain. However, further international collaboration is needed to harmonize existing standards, ensure the economic viability of green mineral operations, develop a global framework for circularity and strengthen capacity building.
