As world leaders meet this week at the COP26 (United Nations Climate Change Conference), it is urgent for them to take concrete action. Their decisions must ensure a just, people-centred and sustainable transition to a low carbon economy, including keeping the global temperature rise below 1.5°C to limit the most dangerous impacts of the climate crisis.

We the undersigned organisations are members of Publish What You Pay,  the global movement for open and accountable extractive industries. We have strong roots and membership in the countries and communities where oil and gas drilling and mining take place. We speak from countries that have done the least to cause the climate crisis but are set to suffer the worst effects of it and face the highest risks of an unfair and mismanaged energy transition. We also speak from major historical high-carbon-emitting and wealthier countries that must act fastest and finance the energy transition.

COP26 is a pivotal moment for governments to take unprecedented action to phase out fossil fuel production in line with the scientific consensus to prevent more than 1.5ºC of warming. However, failing to put people at the centre of the required energy transition will result in it being both inadequate and unfair. Here are our messages for world leaders for COP26 and beyond:

• We must clean up mineral supply chains to deliver a just transition: A sixfold increase in the demand for transition minerals such as cobalt, lithium and copper is likely to accompany the transition to a low carbon economy. In many countries, extraction takes place at great cost to the health, environment and livelihoods of local people, and research indicates that women and girls are disproportionately harmed. Local communities see little economic benefit from extraction. Citizen participation, guarantees of indigenous rights, including free, prior and informed consent, and other human rights, and strong governance safeguards must be in place to avoid further damage to communities close to extraction.
• It is time to get serious about supporting developing countries: Rich countries are set to fall short of their pledge to mobilise $100 billion per year by 2020 to support climate change mitigation and adaptation in developing countries. For many nations this finance is desperately needed to assist the transition to a sustainable low carbon economy.  This is doubly important for economies highly dependent on fossil fuels, which will need to diversify rapidly to deliver the energy transition the world needs whilst also safeguarding livelihoods and energy access. Rich countries must step up and finance an equitable global energy transition as well as supporting policies that facilitate economic diversification, access to clean energy, technology transfer, and decent work in a decarbonised economy. Major additional international finance is also urgently needed to address loss and damage.
• Corruption and mismanagement could undermine a just energy transition: Just as corruption has undermined many countries’ ability to see significant long-term benefit from their natural resources, it now threatens to derail a just transition to a low carbon economy. Powerful actors will seek to pursue their own self-interest at the cost of effective global climate action. This risk is exacerbated by attacks and restrictions on civic space, limiting citizens’ participation in the governance of their country’s natural resources. More transparency, particularly of payments and contractual terms, is needed to accelerate the shift away from fossil fuels, develop sustainable supply chains for transition minerals, and ensure that companies and governments shoulder fair shares of the costs of the energy transition. Transparency must also be accompanied by a safe and enabling environment for citizens and civil society to hold governments and companies to account.

The climate crisis is by far the major crisis of our lifetime. It is already causing devastating loss and damage to people, affecting the most basic human rights of impacted communities, such as the right to life, food, water, health and housing. While none will escape the impacts of this crisis, low-income people (and particularly indigenous peoples, other minorities, women, girls and young people) –  those who have done least to cause these impacts – suffer the most. The energy transition must not compound the harms and inequality arising from the climate crisis. Publish What You Pay alongside other civil society groups are committed to demand long-term accountability from governments, companies and intergovernmental bodies for a genuinely just, equitable and well-managed energy transition.

For more information read Publish What You Pay’s positions on the energy transition.

To add your PWYP member organisation’s name to the list of signatories, please take 1 minute to fill in this form.

List of PWYP member organisations which have signed the statement:

Source: https://www.pwyp.org/pwyp-news/cop26-pwyp-members-statement/