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Women with Disabilities in Nigeria’s Mining Industry: Discrimination and Opportunities
›Women and girls with disabilities worldwide are subject to multiple forms of discrimination—a fact that the 2022 International Day for Persons with Disabilities brings into sharp focus. Yet while all people with disabilities (PWD) face exclusion and widespread stigma, women face the additional burden of exclusion from full participation in economic and cultural activities. Both forms of discrimination result from the collaboration of outdated laws and prevalent societal stigmatization.
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Creating a Just Transition in Green Minerals: A New Video from the Wilson Center and its Partners
›We need minerals to build the solar panels, wind turbines, and other technologies that will decarbonize our economies—and we need a lot of them. The World Bank estimates that demand for lithium, cobalt, and graphite could jump by as much as 500 percent by 2050. Yet mining for these resources has had a fraught history, and it continues to be associated with a hefty list of human rights and conflict risks, including violence, child labor, poor working conditions, land rights abuses, environmental damage and pollution, and a lack of community participation.
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Community-centered Approaches to Green Mineral Mining: A Conversation With Pact’s Roger-Mark De Souza
›According to the World Bank, building enough renewable energy infrastructure to keep global warming below 2C will require more than 3 billion tons of minerals. Reducing emissions quickly is crucial to minimizing risk for the world’s most climate-vulnerable communities, many of whom are on the front lines of a crisis they did not create. But unless we are careful, ramping up mining in order to decarbonize could actually worsen inequity and injustice. “How do we do this quickly, safely, and sustainably, in ways that benefit all?” asks Lauren Risi, Director of the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program in this week’s New Security Broadcast.
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What Better Looks Like: Breaking the Critical Minerals Resource Curse
›In recent years, the urgency of climate action has brought fresh attention to the critical minerals sector. Growing renewable energy investments are driving up demand for resources like lithium, cobalt, and copper, which form the mineral backbone of green technologies. But there are substantial concerns to navigate when it comes to sourcing green energy minerals.
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Protecting Human Rights in DRC Cobalt Mines: A U.S. Priority in a Green Transition
›Secretary of State Anthony J. Blinken recently reaffirmed the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)—a nation located in Africa’s heart—as a “geostrategic player and critical partner” for the United States. It is a country that features prominently in climate change discussions, not only because of its vast natural resources (including mineral wealth estimated to be the largest in the world, as well as possession of a forest cover second only to the Amazon Basin), but especially due to its cobalt reserves.
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Bolivia and Lithium: Can slow and steady win the race?
›The looming 27th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) of the UNFCCC in Egypt in November 2022 brings with it a moment of truth for many nations. They must intensify decarbonization efforts to meet their share of global commitments agreed upon at the Paris COP. Yet, the already significant challenges also have intensified. Disruptions of oil and gas flows caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are slowing a global green energy transition—at least in the short-term. The depth of the crisis means countries are even scrambling to keep coal-powered plants working.
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The Promise of Transatlantic Partnerships in the Critical Mineral Supply Chain
›Supply chain considerations in today’s globalized economy have expanded beyond minimizing costs. As Duncan Wood, Vice President for Strategy and New Initiatives and Senior Advisor to the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center, noted at a recent panel hosted by the Environmental Change & Security Program as part of the Transatlantic Climate Bridge conference, issues ranging from environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) to national security and geopolitics, have transformed critical mineral supply chains into something that is now “inherently political.”
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Preventing a “Green Resource Curse”: Opportunities and Risks of Mining in the Global Energy Transition
›Is a “green resource curse” on its way? Kimberly Thompson, a Senior Advisor for Natural Resources and Conflict and the Industry Lead for Mining at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), says that the current status quo in the green mining industry risks “inadvertently creating the conditions” for it to happen.
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