The world has just witnessed a rare alignment of global decision-making. As the final hours of COP30 in Belém collided with the last days of the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Johannesburg, two arenas shaped the future of the mineral-powered transition. What unfolded this week will either reinforce or fracture the governance of transition minerals, and by extension, the fate of developing countries navigating the energy transition.

In both spaces, the stakes were unmistakably high. And the outcomes tell a story of a world standing at a crossroads.

A breakthrough at COP30 and a fight to keep minerals on the table

In Belém, a Contact Group representing 134 countries made an unprecedented call: the creation of a Global Mechanism for Just Transition. This echoes the core architecture of civil society, trade unions and thousands of grassroots groups proposed through the Belém Action Mechanism (BAM), a framework centered on rights, equity, inclusion, international cooperation, and meaningful finance for just transition pathways.

For the first time in UNFCCC history, transition minerals entered the negotiations. A draft text championed by the EU and UK and supported by countries such as South Africa, Uganda and Burkina Faso signaled genuine political appetite to integrate mineral governance into the COP30 outcome.

This matters. Minerals are no longer a side issue; they are the backbone of decarbonisation. Without standards, transparency, equity and community protection, the transition risks becoming just another frontier of extraction.

But COP30 also exposed deep resistance. Several Parties pushed to delete references to the UN Secretary-General’s Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals, the only high-level platform offering guiding principles to avoid repeating the past: exploitation without development and extraction without justice. In the final outcome any reference to critical minerals was deleted.

The battle to keep minerals in the climate agenda has only just begun. Even without formal recognition in the Just Transition Work Programme (JTWP) decision, minerals undeniably broke through at COP30. Parties across negotiations blocs called for clear support for stronger minerals language such as  the AGN, AOSIS, EIG, Australia, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, the EU, Panama, Somalia, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, the UK, and Uruguay. In addition, observers drove the consistent and coordinated pressure that garnered media attention was not a single moment, it was a result of sustained advocacy over years.  

Geopolitics filled the G20 minerals leadership vacuum

The G20 Summit unfolded under a weakened political weight marked by the absence of leaders from the United States, China, Russia, Mexico and Argentina. These countries are among the central players in mineral consumers, processors and geopolitical brokers. Their absence was not symbolic; it was structural.

Critical decisions on guardrails for extraction, beneficiation and value-addition at source, trade and supply-chain security and community protection require head-of-state engagement. Without these, global mineral governance risks becoming fragmented, inconsistent and shaped by narrow national interests. Under normal circumstances the absence of these minerals key players would have left global rules fragmented or opaque. Yet, the geopolitics of the moment pushed minerals to the forefront anyway.

From the EU-South Africa minerals partnership signed ahead of the summit following similar agreements with Zambia, the DRC and Namibia; to China arriving with a targeted minerals agenda cemented their dominance and pushed back at “unilateral trade measures” at COP30, all signalled political intent. 

The outcome was a G20 Critical Minerals Framework, though voluntary and non-binding, emerged as a cornerstone of South Africa’s presidency. It pushed Africa’s priorities on local beneficiation, value addition, resilient partnerships to center global minerals governance. For Africa, the framework represents an opportunity to move beyond raw exports and amplify development returns from its mineral wealth.

The crossroads: courage or repetition

This week revealed a simple truth. The world must choose between repeating the resource curse or writing a new chapter.

Developing countries understand the stakes. They know that mineral wealth has too often meant dispossession, corruption and economic stagnation. They are now pushing harder than ever for rules that ensure minerals serve people first rather than markets.

But there are competing visions. Governments in the Global North and Global South do not share the same interpretation of what transition minerals represent. For some, minerals are a supply-chain issue. For others, they are a sovereignty question, an economic opportunity and a justice demand.

This divergence is widening. The events of this week made it impossible to ignore.

A brief moment of alignment and what must come next

The overlap between COP30 and the G20 may be the only moment for years in which both global arenas confronted the mineral question at the same time.

What happens next will determine whether this moment becomes a turning point.

Governments must decide:

  • Will decarbonisation be built on solidarity, or on new sacrifice zones?
  • Will minerals fuel shared prosperity, or a new era of extraction without accountability?
  • Will the Global South gain voice and value, or once again be relegated to the bottom of the value chain?

This week did not produce definitive answers. But it exposed the choices with stark clarity.

The next phase of climate action will be determined not by promises but by governance: who extracts, who benefits, who is protected and who decides.

The future of the energy transition depends on whether the world can finally break from the past.

After this decisive week, one thing is certain: history will not wait.

Koaile Monaheng,
Pan-African Political Strategist