From Green to Mean: Transition Minerals and Political Violence

Apr 1, 2025 | XCEPT
London and online
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Join us on 1 April 2025 at this hybrid event to explore the green transition, geopolitical risks, and political instability, with insights on transition minerals, a fair energy shift, and global resource reliance.

Climate change is wreaking havoc on societies and ecosystems around the globe, with increasingly devastating effects. As the world races to confront this crisis, the urgent shift toward renewable energy is already underway, with global renewable energy generation set to nearly double in this decade alone. However, this green transition is not without its challenges. The widespread installation of solar panels, wind turbines, and storage batteries depends heavily on critical transition minerals like lithium, cobalt, and rare earth elements. To meet climate targets, demand for these minerals is projected to surge by up to 4,000% by mid-century.

This dramatic increase in mining activities raises significant concerns. Rebel groups are already exploiting mining revenues to fund insurgencies, while mining sites are frequently met with fierce local resistance. In many cases, anti-mining protests are violently suppressed by security forces, further escalating tensions.

This panel will explore the complex intersection of the green transition, geopolitical risks, and political instability. Expert speakers will examine the political violence tied to transition minerals, the potential for a just and peaceful energy shift, and the broader implications of a world dependent on critical resources for its sustainable future.

Register here for in-person or virtual attendance. 

Agenda:

09:00 – 09:30:     Arrival and networking for in-person attendees

09:30 – 11:00     Presentation and discussion  

Speakers:

Prof Michael Bradshaw is Professor of Global Energy at Warwick Business School. He is a Geographer and a former Vice President of the Royal Geographical Society and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. He recently completed a two-year secondment with Shell Scenarios as a Senior Scenario Planner (2022-24) and is an Associate Fellow with the Environment and Society Centre at Chatham House. His current research with UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) is on the geopolitics of fossil fuel phase down and he is writing a book on the Geopolitics of Energy System Transformation to be published in late 2025.

Dr Metehan Ciftci is a social scientist exploring the social, political, and economic implications of natural resource exploitation. His research focuses on environmental justice, the resource curse, energy transition minerals, and material circularity. As a postdoctoral researcher at Oxford University, he examines economic and regulatory frameworks for extracting critical minerals from volcanic geofluids in Montserrat, ensuring social and economic benefits. His work integrates resource governance with climate resilience, land rights, and circular economy principles. He is currently completing his PhD at UCL on lithium-related conflicts in Chile and Argentina. 

Emily Iona Stewart has a background in heritage and European labor law. She first began working on environmental and climate issues as head policy advisor on the European Parliament’s Environment Committee. She specializes in European climate policy and played a key role in forming the EU’s sustainability strategy, which eventually led to the European Green Deal. Emily is the Head of Policy and EU Relations for Global Witness’s Transition Minerals campaign, which seeks to place the Just Transition at the heart of growing demand for minerals powering zero-carbon technologies, ensuring communities have a voice and stake in the transition.

Marc Dummett is the head of the Business and Human Rights team at Amnesty International, which carries out research, campaigning, and advocacy on behalf of communities affected by harmful corporate operations. Since 2016 he has been documenting human rights abuses linked to the extraction of minerals used in the energy transition and campaigning for companies along the supply chain to respect rights through the implementation of effective human rights due diligence. Mark is the author of a report, “This is What We Die For”, which first exposed the child labour in cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He has also led human rights investigations in Nigeria, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Myanmar, Bangladesh and India. He is a former BBC News Correspondent.

Moderator:

Prof Tobias Ide is Associate Professor of Politics and International Relations at Murdoch University, Perth and Specially Appointed Professor of Peace and Sustainability at Hiroshima University. He has published numerous articles on environmental security, climate conflicts, and environmental peacebuilding. He has also consulted policy makers like NATO, the UN, and the World Bank on these topics. He is the XCEPT Climate Conflict Research Fellow.