🌱 What issues can the energy transition create?
The production of renewable energy technologies and batteries can bring an array of environmental and human rights issues with it. Examples of this include the child labour and human rights violations sometimes found in cobalt mining operations. Cobalt is used in batteries and the demand for it has increased in light of the energy transition.[i] More broadly, access to and costs for renewable energy are also areas where issues can arise.
🌱 Why is the energy transition important?
While a rapid and largescale transition over to renewable energy is urgently needed, steps must be taken to make sure communities, workers, and consumers are not left behind. The failure do so can lead to resistance, community opposition, an “erosion of public support”, and even conflict. All of these can significantly impede both the progress and the pace of individual energy projects and the energy transition as a whole.[ii]
🌱 What is needed for a just transition?
To achieve a just transition, the private sector, investors, and governments must ensure that corporate human rights due diligence is carried out well, that fair negotiations are held with impacted communities, and that measures are put into place to make sure the energy transition “delivers shared prosperity”.[iii]
[i] https://qz.com/battery-passport-sustainable-climate-tech-1851095928; https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/from-us/briefings/silicon-shadows-venture-capital-human-rights-and-the-lack-of-due-diligence/; https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/28/us/migrant-child-labor-audits.html
[ii] https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/society-equity/comment-renewable-energy-revolution-will-only-happen-time-if-no-one-is-left-2023-11-22/; https://www.esginvestor.net/live/renewables-sector-unprepared-to-provide-fair-transition-bhrrc/; https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/from-us/briefings/renewable-energy-benchmark-2023/
[iii] https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/society-equity/comment-renewable-energy-revolution-will-only-happen-time-if-no-one-is-left-2023-11-22/; https://www.esginvestor.net/live/renewables-sector-unprepared-to-provide-fair-transition-bhrrc/; https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/from-us/briefings/renewable-energy-benchmark-2023/