Just Energy Transitions: Shaping Critical Minerals Governance in the Asia-Pacific

An event by the UNESCO Chair in Science Communication for the Public Good

Marie Reay Teaching Centre Room 5.02, Kambri - ANU, 4 November 2024

10.00 AM - 4.00 PM

This event is in person only

Registration is essential

Registration here.

Transitioning to a low-carbon economy is essential for mitigating climate change, however, it presents a series of ethical and policy dilemmas. Our current and anticipated energy systems are driving more demand for critical minerals like cobalt, lithium, and nickel as well as commodities like copper. This focus not only sustains the momentum for mineral-intensive solutions but also limits exploration of alternative pathways to decarbonisation. As a result, we risk locking ourselves into a mineral and extractive intensive transition process. Extracting and developing these minerals into ‘low-carbon’ technologies necessitates practices that are often carbon-intensive and come at extensive cost to Indigenous People and local communities and their environments. Without pro-active attention to the governance of natural resources and energy transitions, the current transition pathway will create and exacerbate entwined economic and environmental harms, inequalities, and injustices.

The Asia-Pacific is home to key critical mineral-producing and processing countries, including China, Australia, Chile, and Indonesia. Critical minerals are now major policy priorities that are the subject of domestic and regional debates. These debates centre around issues of global demand for these minerals, geopolitical competition, volatile commodity prices, and environmental impacts and socio-economic injustices of extraction and energy supply. This forum will discuss the role of public and private sector actors in the Asia-Pacific region participate in a just transition, with a particular focus on questions of justice and fairness for Indigenous Peoples and local communities. The forum will be guided by the following two key questions/themes:

1. What system changes are needed to address historical and existing injustices and avoid creating new injustices in critical mineral governance?

2. How can we avoid mineral-intensive lock-in through transitions? How to achieve alternative futures?

 

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Co-organisers:

• Dr Rini Astuti - (ANU - Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science)
• Professor Sujatha Raman - (ANU - Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science)
• Dr Rebecca Riggs - (CSIRO - Valuing Sustainability Future Science Platform)
• A/Prof Nick Bainton - (ANU – School of Regulation and Governance)
• Dr Beck Pearse - (ANU – School of Sociology)
• Dr Arianto Patunru - (Indonesia Project - Crawford School of Public Policy)
• Dr Ehsan Nabavi - (ANU - Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science)
• Professor Budy Resosudarmo (ANU - Crawford School of Public Policy)

With support from the ANU Institute of Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions – ANU and with thanks to CSIRO.