The G20 Summit is set to take place this weekend. According to the schedule, it’s being hosted on the African continent, specifically in South Africa, and will unfold in Johannesburg from November 22-23, 2025. As we all know, this forum brings together leaders from member countries to discuss future global economic plans, including trade and natural resources, all within the context of international solidarity in addressing challenges such as climate change, inequality, and poverty. This aligns with the summit’s theme: “Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability”.
Of course, alongside COP30 in Brazil, this international conference will shape the direction of the global energy transition, which, directly or indirectly, impacts Indonesia’s policies on natural resource governance in this context.
As the presiding country, South Africa views critical minerals as vitally important. These minerals, which underpin the energy transition, must bring prosperity and sovereignty to developing nations as they determine global supply chains. Currently, South Africa, as the 2025 G20 presidency, is developing a Critical Minerals Framework. So, what about Indonesia?
As the world’s top nickel producer, Indonesia cannot afford to be a mere spectator. This G20 moment is like two sides of a coin for Indonesia in the context of critical minerals. As a country rich in critical minerals needed for the energy transition, Indonesia has the capital and opportunity to become a rule-shaper. At the same time, it risks being just a rule taker.
Key Issues to Watch
Having natural resources essential to the energy transition doesn’t automatically yield benefits. In fact, it can lead to environmental destruction if governance is chaotic. The on-the-ground reality of nickel exploitation for electric vehicle batteries, for example, remains concerning. The expansion of critical mineral mining in Indonesia has accelerated rapidly since the energy transition narrative took hold. Meanwhile, governance lags far behind. This has spawned complex problems that persist to this day.
The issues arising from this massive exploitation of natural resources should be Indonesia’s primary focus at this international forum.
At a minimum, there are six problems stemming from the intensive exploitation of nickel and other natural resources in pushing the energy transition. First, corruption in permitting and oversight, which remains vulnerable to political-business collusion. Second, massive deforestation. Studies show forest damage in nickel mining areas is nearly twice that of controlled permit zones.
Third, water pollution, toxic tailings waste, and threats to small island ecosystems and coastal community health. Fourth, land conflicts, criminalization of communities, violations of indigenous rights, and the systematic marginalization of women, who bear the highest risks but reap the lowest benefits. Next, unequal benefit sharing. Added value flows abroad, while local communities shoulder the environmental and social damage. Sixth, low transparency: contracts, permits, and payment flows remain opaque. These issues must be addressed. If these risks are managed, the benefits could flow from upstream to downstream. Otherwise, the downstream processing we’re so proud of might just become a new version of the “resource curse.”
Civil Society’s Push
The Critical Minerals Framework being drafted must be transformed from merely a tool to secure supplies for developed nations into an instrument of global justice. In a discussion titled “Strengthening Indonesia’s Role in the G20 for a Fair and Balanced Global Order” on November 17, we proposed three priority agendas for the Indonesian government to bring to the G20 Summit in Johannesburg.
First, a mandatory global traceability mechanism within the G20 Critical Minerals Framework. This mechanism must include real-time data on mining locations, raw material origins, emission and waste footprints, environmental standards, and the actual economic beneficiaries. Without transparent, publicly accessible traceability, accountability is just an illusion.
Second, binding Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) standards plus benefit sharing along the entire supply chain. Not cosmetic ESG, but an expanded version with real obligations: royalties based on added value, access to green technology, community equity ownership, adequate reclamation and transition funds, and genuine Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC). This is about wealth redistribution, not just impact compensation.
Third, strengthening South-South cooperation among key supplier countries, Indonesia, South Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Chile, Brazil, and others. We must form a bloc to boost bargaining power: centres for critical-mineral technology training, joint resource mapping, and fair regional trade-negotiation mechanisms. Only through this solidarity can the Global South avoid remaining the “dirty upstream, impoverished downstream.”
With its market dominance in nickel and experience in banning raw ore exports, Indonesia has full legitimacy to be a rule-shaper, not a rule-taker. Suppose we succeed in pushing these three agendas. In that case, the Johannesburg G20 won’t just produce empty commitments, but a new global framework that places communities around mines, who have long borne the heaviest burdens, as the primary beneficiaries.
In line with this year’s G20 theme, “Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability,” Indonesia has a moral and strategic responsibility to ensure those words have real meaning. A truly green energy transition only deserves the name if it no longer sacrifices forests, water, indigenous rights, or the futures of women and children in mining areas.
In Johannesburg, Indonesia must speak boldly: critical minerals are not just geopolitical commodities. They’re about dignity and justice for millions of citizens in producer countries who have long been sidelined. This is our moment to become rule shapers or forever remain mere suppliers of raw materials in the world’s story.
Writer: Meliana Lumbantoruan