Conflict Minerals: How to Clean up the Clean Energy Transition: Preventing Violence over New ‘Conflict Minerals’

Mar 6, 2024 | Tarek Ghani, Juan S. Lozano, Anouk Rigterink, and Jacob Shapiro
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Advocates and researchers have drawn attention to the harms from ‘conflict minerals’ (tantalum, tin, tungsten, and gold) for more than two decades. As the European Union Trade Commission notes, “In politically unstable areas, armed groups often use forced labour to mine minerals. They then sell those minerals to fund their activities, for example to buy weapons.” 

But rebels are not the only source of violence near mining sites. Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) by individuals or small groups with little to no technology often occurs around the same deposits as industrial mining, and the competition between them can increase the risk of disruption and violence. As the world enters a new mining boom spurred by geopolitical competition to secure critical minerals, it would be a strategic mistake to ignore either the challenges posed by ASM or its importance to local livelihoods and economic development.