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This week, negotiators at COP30 have an opportunity to make history by addressing the social and environmental harms of mining and the rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The Just Transition Work Programme
The Just Transition Work Programme (JTWP) was established by the UN in 2022 as a response to long-standing calls to ensure that climate action is fair, inclusive, and equitable. Negotiators at COP30 have a chance to ensure the JTWP becomes a vehicle for real justice — one that does not simply describe a just transition but creates the systems and rules needed to deliver it.
The UNFCCC — the governing body of the international climate treaty — is the umbrella that allows countries to negotiate climate rules, commitments, and cooperation. These negotiations follow a mostly consensus-based model, meaning every Party must agree before a decision is adopted. This process is often slow, complex, and frustrating, but it is intended to ensure equity among countries with vastly different histories, responsibilities, and capacities.
The work on the Just Transition Work Programme is happening through an informal working group, or “contact group,” where negotiators review draft text line by line. Here, countries propose edits and attempt to find compromise text that all can accept. It is inside these rooms that the fate of the Just Transition Work Programme is being shaped, to determine whether it will remain a space for dialogue or evolve into a structure capable of delivering coordinated action, support, and resources that help foster a truly just transition.
For these discussions to have real impact, COP30 must move the JTWP from conversation to implementation. That means establishing a dedicated mechanism that ensures the principles agreed under the JTWP are carried forward, monitored, and enforced in future UNFCCC processes.
Earthworks is advocating for some key pieces to be included:
Indigenous Peoples’ Rights and Free, Prior, and Informed Consent
Indigenous Peoples must be at the forefront of solutions to the climate crisis. On Saturday, we saw Indigenous Peoples march through the streets of Belem carrying banners and signs reading “We are the answer.” The JTWP provides an opportunity to safeguard Indigenous Peoples’ rights.
Activities under the JTWP must fully respect Indigenous Peoples’ right to self-determination and the right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) as established in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. FPIC means Indigenous Peoples have the right to say no, yes, or yes with conditions to projects on their lands and territories. The JTWP must include a mechanism to ensure those commitments are upheld.
The JTWP must also include mechanisms protecting the rights of Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation and Initial Contact, such as the precautionary principle and the principle of no contact. Mining and other energy transition activities threaten the lands, health, and cultures of Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Insolation.
“Critical Minerals” Mining and Processing
The JTWP must include language that recognizes the impacts of so-called critical minerals. Minerals for batteries and other cleaner energy technologies are in demand. But mining and processing those minerals is causing harm to the environment and to frontline and Indigenous communities across the globe, from Brazil to Indonesia.
These risks were underscored in the principles and recommendations outlined in the report of the United Nations Secretary-General’s Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals, which recognized that social and environmental impacts of mining for minerals have to be addressed in order to have a truly just transition to a green economy. This includes the protection of human and labor rights, the assurance of FPIC, establishing ecological no-go zones; and a shift toward true circularity. The JTWP must establish mechanisms that ensure reliable, diversified, sustainable, transparent, and responsible supply chains.
This COP has a chance to make history by addressing the harms that mining can cause, especially mining for minerals that are needed to build cleaner energy technologies. If it is successful, the planet will be much closer to a truly just transition and a cleaner energy future. It’s past time to prove that climate action serves people, not profit. COP30 is our chance.
