Polecol is among more than 150 organizations from around the world that signed the letter addressed to the UN Secretary General, who we ask to immediately initiate the work of an expert group for a just transition in the sector of critical raw materials. Why is it important? Because the mines that are opened to “save the planet” usually poison the water, destroy the land and drive people out of their communities. And among those who suffer the most are precisely those who pollute the least, namely local communities.
That’s why we ask that this expert group not be another room full of lobbyists, but a body in which civil society will have real power to decide. Where the voice from Serbia will also be heard – from the valley of the Jadra, Mionica, Majdanpek, from Homolje, from villages that are disappearing or are threatened with disappearance under the tailings.
And the UN has already undertaken the obligation to form this group, the Secretary General personally announced it at COP29, when he supported the recommendations of the expert panel on critical minerals. More than half a year has passed since then and still nothing. That’s why we wrote to him. Because while in our country mines are opened by trampling on human rights, someone has to take responsibility so that the global transition does not become an excuse for local injustice. The Right to Water initiative and Polekol are part of this fight. Because if no one will ask us, we will write to them. And the UN, and the Government, and everyone who forgets that water has no alternative and that we will not give up the fight!
Read more about the letter and requests we made to the UN: https://pwyp.org/cso-statement-unsg-panel-report/