Civic Power in Just Transitions: Blocking the Way or Transforming the Future?

As the global shift towards a low-carbon economy accelerates, demand for critical minerals is projected to soar, intensifying pressures on supply chains and local environments. Policies like the European Union’s Critical Raw Materials Act and the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act are increasingly proposed to secure mineral access while upholding environmental standards and reducing ecological impacts. However, mining activities face significant civil resistance worldwide. This paper reveals that opposition to mineral extraction is a pervasive global phenomenon, spanning diverse sociopolitical contexts and posing major challenges for the political sustainability of the energy transition. Using data from the Global Database of Events, Language and Tone (GDELT) Project, we map patterns of conflict and cooperation in mining regions globally, providing an unprecedented systematic overview of impacts and underlying economic, environmental, and justice-related drivers. Our findings indicate that many conflicts reach high levels of polarisation, which, as case studies show, often lead to costly delays or project cancellations. Although cooperation frequently arises alongside conflict, high-commitment cooperative actions remain limited in impact and uncertain in their ability to drive meaningful change. We argue that a just, sustainable, and democratic transition requires moving beyond traditional Corporate Social Responsibility approaches and recent proposals for public participation in Environmental Impact Assessments. Instead, it demands deeper democratisation of investment decisions through inclusive governance frameworks that can effectively navigate the complexities of mineral resource extraction.