REH Forum – “Green, but at what cost? The energy transition and critical minerals”, 25/06/2026

Humanitarian NGOs are increasingly committing to their ecological transition: solar panels, electric vehicles, and reducing their carbon footprint. But this transition relies on the large-scale extraction of natural resources, particularly critical minerals (cobalt, lithium, rare earths, etc.), which have devastating impacts on the populations and ecosystems of the Global South. Sometimes, this occurs in the very places where our organisations operate. This paradox resonates directly with the REH Statement of Commitment, amended in January 2026, which now places environmental and social justice at the heart of their transition. This Forum aims to explore this tension head-on: in seeking to ‘green’ our practices, are we, unwittingly, perpetuating an extractivist mindset? And if so, what can we do about it?

The programme for this Forum was as follows:

• The REH’s last three months and the approval of the REH’s new governance structure
• “Energy transition”: a new mining rush? – Margaux Maurel, PhD student in international affairs at HEC Montréal, author of the article in The Conversation Paradoxes of the global energy transition: between green ambitions and intensive mineral extraction
• “The New Green Frontier of Africa” – Alexandria Hotz, green extractivism coordinator at WoMin
• The REH’s next three months