The Human Consciousness Now...Our World in the Midst of Becoming...to What? Observe, contemplate Now.
SRINAGAR, India, Jul 20 2026 (IPS) - As geopolitical tensions, rising electricity demand and climate pressures reshape the global energy landscape, more than 600 energy ministers, chief executives, financial leaders and policy experts gathered in Montreal, deliberating upon how to deliver at an unprecedented scale.
The 11th Annual Global Conference on Energy Efficiency, organised by the International Energy Agency (IEA) on July 7, focused on transforming a global commitment into practical action. Delegates sought ways to meet an ambitious international target of doubling the annual rate of energy efficiency improvements by 2030, a goal widely viewed as essential for strengthening energy security while cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
Speaking during the conference, IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol described energy efficiency as the world’s “first fuel”, calling it the fastest, cheapest and cleanest resource available to countries seeking greater resilience amid growing uncertainty.
Birol reminded delegates that the global energy system has experienced only three major disruptions in recent decades. The oil crises of 1973 and 1979 fundamentally reshaped global energy policy. More recently, the supply chain disruptions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine exposed the vulnerability of international energy markets.
Against that backdrop, he argued, improving efficiency is no longer simply an environmental objective but a matter of national security and economic stability. Growing geopolitical risks around strategic shipping routes, including the Strait of Hormuz, reinforce the urgency of reducing dependence on volatile energy supplies.
“We are in an age of rapid technological change,” Birol said, urging governments and industries to move beyond declarations and begin implementing large-scale solutions.
Throughout the two-day conference, participants repeatedly emphasised that technology alone will not deliver the transformation. Success, they said, depends on closer cooperation between governments, investors and private industry.
One of the conference’s central outcomes was the launch of the Montreal Collaboration Framework, an initiative designed to strengthen coordination between policymakers, financial institutions and businesses. The framework aims to overcome one of the biggest barriers facing energy efficiency projects, fragmented decision-making that often prevents otherwise viable investments from moving forward.
Executives participating in CEO roundtables acknowledged that many companies continue to pursue isolated efficiency upgrades that deliver only modest savings. Such projects frequently fail to attract significant investment because their financial returns appear too limited when evaluated individually.
Industry leaders instead advocated bundling multiple efficiency improvements into larger investment packages.
Rather than replacing a single motor or upgrading one heating system, companies can combine electricity savings, industrial heat recovery, cooling improvements and digital monitoring into integrated projects that generate stronger financial returns and attract institutional financing.
Another recurring theme was the growing importance of data.
Representatives from major industrial technology companies including Schneider Electric and Danfoss argued that many businesses still rely on broad estimates of their energy consumption instead of detailed operational information.
Without precise data, they warned, companies struggle to identify where the greatest efficiency gains can be achieved.
Delegates highlighted artificial intelligence, predictive analytics and digital monitoring systems as increasingly important tools for optimising industrial operations, reducing waste and lowering operating costs.
Representatives from Deutsche Bank argued that traditional investment decisions remain too heavily focused on initial capital expenditure. Instead, investors should assess projects through the lens of total cost of ownership, accounting for decades of lower energy bills, maintenance savings and reduced operational risks.
Such an approach, participants said, makes many efficiency investments substantially more attractive than they initially appear.
The conference also examined one of the energy transition’s newest challenges.
Rapid growth in artificial intelligence and digital services is driving an unprecedented expansion of data centres, creating soaring electricity demand worldwide.
Rather than viewing AI solely as a source of higher consumption, delegates argued that technological innovation can help solve its own energy challenge.
Companies showcased advanced cooling technologies, including liquid cooling and evaporative systems, capable of dramatically reducing the electricity needed to maintain modern data centres.
These innovations, participants said, demonstrate that rising digital demand does not necessarily have to translate into proportionally higher energy consumption.
Beyond technology and finance, speakers repeatedly stressed that energy efficiency must also serve broader social goals.
Yasmin Abraham, representing the Kambo Energy Group, reminded delegates that low-income communities often experience the highest energy costs while having the fewest resources to improve efficiency.
“Communities know the challenge,” she said. “Communities are closest to that challenge but furthest from the resources.”
Governments, she argued, must ensure that efficiency programmes reach vulnerable households rather than benefiting only wealthier consumers and large corporations.
Canada used the conference to announce an expansion of its Canada Greener Homes Affordability Program, which will provide energy efficiency retrofits to approximately 35,000 low- and middle-income households without upfront costs.
Officials described the initiative as an example of how public policy can reduce emissions while improving affordability and living conditions for ordinary families.
Despite widespread optimism, delegates acknowledged that achieving the 2030 efficiency target remains a formidable challenge.
Global energy demand continues to grow as economies expand, industries electrify and artificial intelligence accelerates electricity consumption. Meeting climate commitments while ensuring affordable and reliable energy will require unprecedented coordination across governments, financial institutions and private industry.
Still, the prevailing mood in Montreal remained pragmatic rather than pessimistic.
Participants agreed that the technical solutions largely exist. What has often been missing is coordinated implementation, sufficient investment and political determination.
By the conference’s conclusion, delegates appeared united around a common conviction that energy efficiency should no longer be treated as a secondary climate policy but as the foundation of future energy systems.
“With the launch of the Montreal Collaboration Framework and renewed commitments from governments, industry and financial institutions, the conference sought to transform efficiency from an often overlooked policy objective into the central pillar of global energy security, economic competitiveness and climate action,” Abraham said.
IPS UN Bureau Report
LONDON, Jul 20 2026 (IPS) - Few things unite Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters with the Democratic Party’s progressive wing, but datacentres are one of them. Across the USA, communities are joining forces across the political divide to oppose developments few want but governments seem determined to impose.
Michigan residents are among those who’ve come together across party lines to oppose plans for over a dozen datacentres. Polling shows just 28 per cent of the state’s population support the proposals. Local communities are fighting back, and similar struggles are unfolding across the world.
Datacentre impacts
Datacentre construction is booming, driven by AI use, demanding increasing computing power that requires huge amounts of electricity and water for cooling.
A single question to an AI chatbot can use 10 times more energy than a conventional search. Generating an AI image takes around a thousand times more energy than generating text. The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that datacentre electricity demand will double by 2030.
In Utah, despite thousands of objections, authorities recently approved one of the world’s largest datacentres. It will need more power than the entire state currently uses. The development will construct a gas-fired plant.
AI growth is driving the construction of such gas-powered plants, meaning that more datacentres cause more greenhouse gas emissions. According to the IEA, coal is currently the top energy source for datacentres and over half of all current datacentre power comes from fossil fuels. The agency expects renewables to eventually provide a bigger share of growing needs, but warns that datacentre demand is driving growth for fossil fuel-generated electricity.
Tech companies once pledged to be climate leaders, but that no longer rings true. Google promised to become net zero by 2030, but its greenhouse gas emissions leapt 48 per cent from 2019 to 2023 as it embraced gas-fired electricity for datacentres. In Mumbai, India, two coal plants due to close in 2024 have had their operational life extended to meet demand from Amazon datacentres. Last December, Irish authorities decided that datacentres can keep using fossil fuel electricity for six more years. The UK intends to burn gas to power over 100 planned new datacentres.
Fossil fuel corporations lobby for datacentres almost as hard as tech companies, because they help perpetuate a destructive business model otherwise threatened by the shift to renewables. Fossil fuel corporations were among Donald Trump’s top campaign backers, and they’re benefiting from his administration’s rollback of regulations and ambition to achieve ‘unchallenged global technological dominance’.
Water supplies are coming under greater strain. One large datacentre can use as much daily water as a town of 50,000 people, yet datacentres are being built in some of the world’s driest regions. Amazon plans to open new datacentres in Aragon, Spain, even as the regional government seeks European Union help for drought. Similar concerns surround plans for one of the world’s biggest datacentres in the United Arab Emirates.
Civil society resistance
The struggle against tech companies and their lobbying riches is an unequal one, but civil society is mounting an increasingly credible response.
Climate litigation is an established civil society tactic, and recent research indicates that lawsuits are an emerging response to datacentre developments, with recent examples in Ireland, the UK and the USA. Civil society groups are also filing objections in planning processes, including one recently lodged against a huge proposed datacentre in Cape Town, South Africa.
Legal action by two UK organisations forced the developer of a huge new datacentre in Buckinghamshire to commit to binding environmental impact mitigation measures. Lawsuits are also exposing how datacentre impacts are often understated and inadequately measured. A 2022 case forced Google to publish accurate water consumption figures for an Oregon datacentre.
Protests and campaigning are bringing successes. In 2023, protests driven by a recent drought forced Google to change plans for a datacentre to reduce water use in Uruguay. Similar protests in Chile caused Google to pause its plans. As of last year, public pressure had led to over US$42 billion worth of datacentre projects being changed, delayed or cancelled in Europe, and US$77 billion worth in the USA.
In the USA, civil society groups have forged alliances with sub-national administrations to develop stronger local environmental and accountability standards. While established politicians aren’t listening, there are signs that US local politics are shifting. Some candidates opposed to datacentres have won, and several local administrations have introduced bans or moratoriums.
Campaign successes are bringing new threats. US industry lobbyists have smeared activists as agents of foreign influence determined to sabotage the country’s technological supremacy. US government documents show a growing focus on what they call ‘anti-technological extremism’, suggesting that security forces may be gathering intelligence on campaigners, and peaceful protesters could be targeted for surveillance on national security grounds.
Tech companies that are driving datacentre development often present themselves as free speech champions. They should prove it by ensuring that wherever they develop, people are able to protest, and hold them to environmental standards. There’s widespread public opposition and no shortage of people bearing the climate and environmental costs of the datacentre boom. Their voices must be heard.
Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.
For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org
LONDON, Jul 20 2026 (IPS) - We have just concluded a visit to the West Bank, Israel, Jordan and Lebanon. From all that we have witnessed and heard, our inescapable conclusion is that the government of Prime Minister Netanyahu, and in particular Ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, aim to make Palestine disappear physically, economically, culturally and politically. Yet other governments either are choosing not to see this or lack the will to take meaningful concerted action.
While the population in Gaza is forcibly pushed into an ever-smaller pocket of land amid destruction and deplorable humanitarian conditions, annexation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem is occurring in plain sight. The Government of Israel’s systematic attacks on UNRWA are intended to de-legitimise the rights of Palestinian refugees. Hate speech and incitement to violence by ministers are dehumanising Palestinians and creating a dangerous enabling environment for ethnic cleansing to take root.
We have spoken to mothers, fathers and children who are living under occupation and whose lives and dignity are oppressed in every sense. This is a collective denial of humanity.
We refuse to abandon the vision of the Israeli and Palestinian peoples living alongside each other in mutual peace and security.
Self-determination is the right of Palestinians, but the current Government of Israel aims to deprive them of it permanently. Ultimately, occupation, annexation, and forced displacement leading to ethnic cleansing will also destroy the long-term prospects for Israel’s own peace and security.
We recognise that Israel has long-standing and legitimate security concerns. These have been heightened since the Hamas terror attacks of 7 October 2023 which we have unequivocally condemned.
Those concerns cannot be addressed through occupation and aggression, but only through inclusive political solutions and a genuine path to Palestinian self-determination. Many Israeli security experts share this view.
We are alarmed by the growing settler violence and the severe pressure on services provided by the Palestinian Authority – caused mainly by the Government of Israel’s unjustified withholding of Palestinian tax revenues. These are inflicting ever greater hardship on Palestinians.
Only two states living side by side in peace, with clearly negotiated borders and mutual recognition, can give security to Israelis and Palestinians alike. Peace depends on two-state security.
This will be possible only by stopping Israel’s actions and the impunity that facilitates them from the horrors of the genocide which has unfolded in Gaza and the ongoing annexation of the West Bank to the illegal US-Israeli war on Iran. The same applies to the IDF’s continuing military incursions into, and occupation of parts of Southern Lebanon: innocent civilians are being killed and hundreds of thousands of Lebanese have been uprooted from their land.
International handwringing and regret will be of no value to Palestinian men, women, and children if the E1 settlement proceeds to cut through the West Bank and seals off East Jerusalem, or when the sustained deprivation and shrinking of Gaza – already one of the most densely populated areas of the world – renders normal life impossible.
We applaud the Palestinian and Israeli human rights organisations which are shining a light on state-sanctioned abuses against Palestinian detainees. We welcome the growing criticism of settler terror attacks – often with the complicity of the IDF – against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank.
When Israeli society at large recognises both the fundamental injustice of Israel’s nearly 60-year-long occupation of Palestinian territory and the Palestinians’ right to dignity and self-determination there can be a just and lasting peace.
The same message applies to Israel’s traditional partners and allies, particularly the European Union. We support the efforts of those EU Member States which are already proposing robust actions on trade and sanctions against Israel, including suspension of the trade pillar of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. Most immediately, the EU must ban all trade with the West Bank settlements which it has long agreed are illegal. The EU has a responsibility to uphold international law; without taking decisive action it is complicit in these injustices.
The UN Security Council must act to ensure that the path forward is firmly grounded in international law.
Palestine must not disappear. Leaders must accept responsibility and act now.
Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Graça Machel, Founder of the Graça Machel Trust, Co-founder and Deputy Chair of The Elders
Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand and former head of the UN Development Programme
Hina Jilani, Advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and co-chair of the Taskforce on Justice
IPS UN Bureau
Excerpt:
A statement by Mary Robinson, Graça Machel, Helen Clark and Hina Jilani following their visit to the Middle East, 11-16 July 2026.
WASHINGTON DC, Jul 17 2026 (IPS) - The largest disruption to the global oil market in decades should have sent prices soaring. But after spiking at the start of the war in the Middle East, crude prices soon settled in a range of $90 to $100 per barrel, much lower than many had feared. Why didn’t prices climb higher? The answer is that a combination of factors helped cushion the initial blow. But much of that room has now been used up.
There are plenty of reasons why oil should have become cripplingly expensive. The war effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off some 20 million barrels a day of crude oil and refined products, a fifth of global consumption. Gulf producers redirected what they could. Saudi Arabia sent oil through its pipeline to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. The United Arab Emirates pushed its Fujairah port, outside the strait, close to capacity. Even so, these workarounds offset only a fraction of lost Hormuz volumes.
Beyond crude, refined product output in the gulf region dropped significantly, hitting diesel and jet fuel hardest—products in which the region accounts for about 10 percent of global supply.
By the end of May, more than 1.1 billion barrels of crude—equivalent to about 10 days of typical global consumption—had not reached the market. At the same stage of the disruption, the shortfall exceeded those of the 1973 oil shock, the Iran-Iraq war, and the Gulf War.
Three shock absorbers
How did the global system absorb a disruption of this scale? In the days before the war, supply was running about 2 million barrels a day above demand, providing a head start. In the March-May period, three factors helped close the gap:
• Demand compression did the heavy lifting, especially in Asia, as higher prices reduced consumption and economies turned to alternatives such as coal and renewables. Transportation demand proved stickier though, in part because of fuel price caps, subsidies, and tax rebates that contained the impact—but at a fiscal cost.• Production outside the Gulf rose more than expected, by nearly 2 million barrels a day above 2025 levels. The United States led the way, with Venezuela, Guyana, and Russia also raising production.
• Inventories did the rest. The estimated market deficit of about 4.0 million barrels a day in March–May was met almost entirely by drawing down global stocks, including commercial inventories in China and strategic reserves.
Recovery won’t be instant
Before the most recent escalation of tensions, the US-Iran framework agreement to reopen the strait sent prices sharply lower, in large part because stranded oil on tankers in the Gulf could rapidly return to the market. Still, much remains uncertain—including when freedom of navigation through the world’s most critical oil chokepoint will be effectively restored, and how quickly shipping, insurance, and operator confidence will follow.
Industry estimates suggest it will take two to three months before a significant share of oil flows can resume following a full reopening of the waterway. A longer-term concern is that prolonged production halts could cause permanent output losses, especially where financing to restart wells is scarce.
Whenever supply begins to recover, the oil deficit will close only gradually, drawing inventories closer to operational minimums—the level below which the physical system itself begins to bind.
Lessons for policymakers
Energy shocks still bite. What cushioned the initial blow this time is that energy markets had room to maneuver and absorb it. As tensions flare again in the Strait of Hormuz, that room is now smaller and shrinking further as spare capacity has been deployed, demand has compressed, and inventories have been drawn down. Unless inventories are replenished, the world will start from a weaker position when the next shock comes.
For policymakers, three lessons stand out:
• Inventories matter. Rebuilding them is essential to prepare for future shocks.• A single chokepoint leaves the global economy heavily exposed. Diversifying energy sources—including renewables—is as important as diversifying routes.
• Support to consumers should be targeted to the most vulnerable and temporary to protect government budgets and the price signals that encourage energy saving and efficiency.
Energy markets’ flexibility and prompt policy actions bought the global economy time. An enduring US-Iran agreement would create an opening to restore supply. But significant efforts are still critically needed to increase the resilience and diversification of energy supply and prevent oil shocks from destabilizing the global economy.
IPS UN Bureau
Jul 17 2026 (IPS) -
CIVICUS discusses the prospects for elections in Serbia with Rasa Nedeljkov, Programme Director at the Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability, a civil society organisation that monitors electoral processes and the rule of law in Serbia.
Rasa Nedeljkov
How has President Vučić responded to demands for elections?
Vučić committed to holding early elections in 2026 under pressure from over a year of mass protests. His announcement came with no date for dissolving parliament or his resignation, amid speculation that he could return as prime minister.
Vučić has deliberately dragged his feet because he wants to ensure that when they happen, his party cannot lose. Meanwhile, the government has systematically worsened conditions for elections. Independent media are being suffocated. University professors who supported student protests are being fired. Justice officials who show independence are being replaced by more obedient ones. Hate campaigns against civil society, journalists, opposition parties and students are intensifying. The plan has been transparent: call elections only once the environment is so controlled that they cannot bring real change.
This strategy reveals the fundamental collapse of democratic standards in Serbia. Democracy requires genuine competition, and competition is genuine only when the government can lose. Vučić is building the opposite, putting in place a system where elections are empty rituals that rubber-stamp predetermined outcomes. Every month of delay has bought time to consolidate control and eliminate remaining spaces for independent voices.
What are the challenges with elections in Serbia?
Elections are being voided of substance through the systematic disregard, misuse and selective enforcement of laws and rules, all with the goal of turning elections into empty rituals.
We are witnessing harsher voter intimidation, more elaborate political clientelism, more brazen abuse of public resources and increasingly overt violence on election day. Our observers have been physically attacked, with police looking on.
Elections are still held, but the quality of the process is severely damaged. Electoral corruption takes countless forms, including interference in elections by organised crime and capture of institutions. And it’s protected by impunity. The state apparatus refuses to prosecute it.
Serbia is becoming an electoral autocracy. Unlike democracies, where governments lose elections, in electoral autocracies only opposition parties can lose.
How is the government attacking civil society?
Fourteen months ago, police raided our office and remained on-site for 28 hours, copying almost 10,000 pages of financial documents. This was turned into a spectacle for state-controlled media, which branded us a ‘criminal gang of foreign mercenaries money-laundering millions of dollars’. Three other civil society organisations in Belgrade were raided on the same day. We still haven’t heard from the prosecutor’s office, and we are certain our papers were perfectly clean.
Yet the assault continues through narrative and threat. Senior ruling party officials and pro-government media regularly label us as behind-the-scenes organisers of a ‘colour revolution against Serbia’. We live in constant uncertainty, never knowing if another raid or something worse is coming. The strategy is clear: to exhaust civil society financially and psychologically and make donors and partners fear any association with us. It’s institutional intimidation dressed in the language of law enforcement.
Can protests bring lasting institutional change?
The protests are the best thing that has happened to Serbia in a long time. Sparked by the collapse of a railway station canopy in Novi Sad in November 2024, which killed 16 people, they began as a student-led demand for accountability and grew into a nationwide movement. Our society had sunk into political apathy, a feeling that there was no alternative, not even a slight possibility of change. The endurance of Serbian people in demanding the restoration of the rule of law, in the face of growing repression and toxic propaganda, has been remarkable. Society has been evolving politically, showing more solidarity and resilience. People have begun to imagine that change is possible.
At the same time, the protests have made painfully visible how deep state capture runs, and how far Serbia is from having accountable institutions. How do you translate months of mobilisation into lasting change? Nobody has a complete answer. When we get there, the transition will be complex and exhausting. We should closely watch neighbouring Hungary. Viktor Orbán’s and Vučić’s styles of authoritarian, grand-corruption-driven rule are very much alike. However, Hungary is an EU member, which may make a big difference.
We believe it’s important that this period, rather than the moment elections are officially called, be used for preparation, including by recruiting and training people to serve as election observers and members of polling boards, and building the logistics needed to cover polling stations nationwide. The goal has to be readiness, so whenever elections are called, the infrastructure of oversight is already in place.
What’s the role of the EU in Serbia’s democratic future?
Serbia needs more international support and pressure, and the EU is the most crucial lever. Neighbouring countries are making progress towards EU membership. Serbia is stuck. Without the EU perspective, all potential outcomes for Serbia look murky.
Our current government is far closer to China and Russia than to Europe, as its propaganda and rhetoric make abundantly clear. It wants only the financial benefits of EU membership, not the accountability that comes with it. It wants EU money without EU standards. That’s not a sustainable position, but without stronger international pressure, it may be the path Serbia remains on.
CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.
GET IN TOUCH
Website
Bluesky
Facebook
Instagram
Threads
TikTok
Twitter
YouTube
SEE ALSO
Serbia: ‘Social media are more trustworthy than much of official media, a disturbing sign of state capture’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Marija Babić 29.Jun.2026
Serbia: ‘We haven’t inherited democracy, so we’ve had to reinvent it ourselves’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Mihajlo Matković 06.Dec.2025
Serbia’s suspicious election CIVICUS Lens 26.Jan.2024
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania, Jul 17 2026 (IPS) - The sweltering heat inside a London conference hall did not deter Indigenous leader Jackeline Mendoza Díaz from condemning the sheer destruction of the Peruvian Amazon. Her voice occasionally trembled with emotion but delivered a strong message — painting a picture far removed from the glittering gold bars traded in the world’s financial capitals.
Behind the rising price of gold, she said, lie poisoned rivers, razed forests and Indigenous communities jostling to defend their ancestral lands from the rising wave of illegal mining.
In her Asháninka community, she said, rivers that once sustained life no longer provide edible fish. Women trek for hours searching for clean water, while community leaders who speak out against encroachment increasingly do so at personal risk.
“Our rivers are being contaminated with mercury. When the rivers are contaminated, the fish become contaminated as well, and we indigenous people depend on these rivers for our survival,” Díaz told participants during a webinar that brought together Indigenous leaders, environmental advocates, investigators, bankers and policymakers to discuss the growing crisis of illicit gold.
Her testimony offered a glimpse into a global phenomenon that experts say is accelerating, as gold prices fuel environmental destruction, organized crime and corruption across continents
Behind the soaring value of gold lies a darker reality, visible in remote forests, fragile river systems and marginalised communities globally.
A recent report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (GI-TOC) warns that illicit gold has become one of the world’s most consequential criminal markets, functioning as an “accelerant economy” that fuels conflict, corruption, environmental crime and organised criminal networks worldwide.
The report says rising gold prices have enabled criminals to control entire supply chains.
For nearby communities, the consequences are dire.
“We are defenders of the forests and defenders of life. Yet because of this, Indigenous defenders are often attacked, and many of us are even killed for protecting our people, our territories and our way of life,” said Diaz.
Forests Falling, Rivers Dying
In Ghana, where illegal mining has become a national crisis, environmental campaigner Daryl Bosu described a country caught up in a moral dilemma to balance the worth of the precious metal with environmental woes.
“Ghana is Africa’s largest gold producer, and gold remains one of the most important pillars of our economy,” Bosu said. “However, alongside these economic benefits, we have witnessed an alarming increase in illegal and poorly regulated mining activities.”
The environmental consequences, he warned, have been severe.
“Many of our forest reserves have suffered extensive degradation. Rivers and water bodies that serve millions of people have become heavily polluted.”
Across gold-producing regions, forests are rapidly being cleared to dig mining pits, roads and processing kilns. Once mining begins, toxic substances often contaminate rivers and groundwater aquifers.
According to the GI-TOC report, illicit gold mining frequently paves the way for illegal logging, wildlife trafficking and land grabbing. Dirty money is increasingly being invested in cattle ranching that destroys critical forest ecosystems.
Mercury’s Silent Toll
While deforestation often captures public attention, experts say mercury pollution remains one of the most devastating but least visible consequences of artisanal and small-scale gold mining.
Speaking exclusively to IPS during the recent Global Environment Facility (GEF) Assembly in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, Monika Stankiewicz, Executive Secretary of the Minamata Convention on Mercury, warned that mercury contamination continues to threaten millions of people living in mining communities.
“Mercury contamination does not stop at the mining site,” Stankiewicz told IPS.
“It enters rivers and ecosystems, affecting fish, soil and water sources locally.”
For families dependent on fishing and farming, the consequences can be profound.
“Reduced food safety and food security, loss of income from contaminated natural resources, and long-term degradation of ecosystems they depend on,” she explained.
Mercury exposure can trigger neurological damage, memory loss, tremors, respiratory illnesses and reproductive health complications. Children are particularly vulnerable.
The impacts extend far beyond mining sites themselves.
Mercury released into the environment can travel vast distances through atmospheric circulation. Indigenous communities in the Arctic, for example, are experiencing mercury contamination despite having no mercury-intensive mining activities in their territories.
Following the Money
Yet environmental damage represents only one side of the illicit gold equation.
Several participants stressed that illicit gold is fundamentally a financial crime issue.
Julia Yansura, programme director, Environmental Crime & Illicit Finance, FACT Coalition, said billions of dollars earned through environmentally damaging mining activities continue to enter legitimate financial systems without scrutiny.
“What we are discussing today is not merely an environmental issue,” she said. “It is also a financial crime issue.”
Traditional responses have focused heavily on police raids and military operations targeting miners.
But according to Yansura, such interventions often fail because they focus on low-level actors while leaving intact the financial networks that sustain illegal mining.
“A more effective approach would focus on following the money,” she said.
The GI-TOC report supports that assessment, warning that criminals increasingly control entire gold supply chains.
The report also identifies growing use of cryptocurrencies and gold-backed stablecoins as emerging mechanisms for laundering illicit proceeds outside traditional anti-money laundering frameworks.
London’s Hidden Role
Much of the webinar focused on the responsibilities of major financial centres.
A coalition of 35 civil society organisations has urged governments gathering at the UK Illicit Finance Summit to recognise that gold has evolved beyond a commodity into what they describe as a strategic vehicle for organised crime, sanctions evasion and corruption.
The coalition notes that London remains the world’s largest over-the-counter gold trading hub, handling approximately 70 percent of global OTC gold trading volumes.
Because illicit gold frequently passes through multiple countries and refineries before reaching financial markets, campaigners argue that financial centres can no longer treat illegal mining as a problem confined to producer countries.
“The solution cannot come only from mining countries,” Yansura said. “It must also come from the financial centres where profits are ultimately laundered and legitimated.”
The coalition is calling for mandatory due diligence requirements, stronger beneficial ownership transparency, enhanced scrutiny of gold traders and robust anti-money laundering obligations across the entire gold supply chain.
A Crisis Outpacing Regulation
Sophia Pickles of the GI-TOC warned that existing international frameworks have failed to contain the evolving nature of illicit gold markets.
“There has undoubtedly been progress,” she acknowledged. “However, our recent research shows that criminal activity linked to gold mining is expanding.”
According to the GI-TOC report, voluntary responsible sourcing standards are insufficient against increasingly sophisticated criminal networks. Information gaps, weak customs oversight and opaque financial transactions continue to provide opportunities for illicit gold to enter legitimate markets.
Researchers argue that current approaches remain too narrowly focused on artisanal mining and conflict zones while overlooking broader vulnerabilities embedded throughout global supply chains.
Among the report’s key recommendations are legally binding due diligence requirements, stronger oversight of international bullion centres, mandatory transparency measures and enhanced scrutiny of financial institutions.
Searching for Solutions
Despite the scale of the challenge, Stankiewicz believes progress is possible.
Under the Minamata Convention, countries with significant artisanal and small-scale gold mining sectors are required to develop national action plans aimed at reducing mercury use and protecting communities.
The results, she says, are encouraging.
Countries are increasingly adopting mercury-free technologies, strengthening regulations and formalising parts of the mining sector.
Beyond the Gold Rush
As the webinar drew to an end, panellists emphasised that illicit gold is not just a mining issue but an environmental, health, governance, human rights and financial crime crisis.
For Mendoza Díaz and communities living on the edge of gold extraction, the message was crystal clear.
“We are not just defending our land and our territories; we are defending life itself and our ecosystem.”
IPS UN Bureau Report
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 17 2026 (IPS) - A continuation of hostilities within the Strait of Hormuz is once again threatening one of the world’s most critical supply chain arteries, posing another wave of disruption which could choke the global energy, shipping and commodity markets. With roughly a quarter of global seaborne oil trade transiting through the Strait, alongside significant flows of liquefied natural gas and fertilizers, further constraints on commercial traffic could send new cost pressures cascading through supply chains that have yet to absorb the full effects of the earlier conflict.
Unlike the initial disruption, this latest escalation is hitting an already elevated and damaged cost base. U.S. President Donald Trump had proposed a 20 percent charge on cargo transiting the Strait, a plan he abandoned on July 14th after pressure from Gulf allies. At a current crude oil price of roughly USD 85 per barrel, a 20 percent levy on all cargo would amount to an additional USD 17 per barrel, around 17 times Iran’s previously proposed USD 1 per barrel toll.
Yet, the larger challenge remains whether an assurance of safety through the Strait can really be guaranteed. While Washington has promised to safeguard commercial vessels attempting to transit, multiple vessels have been struck by Iranian forces, including the UAE-flagged supertankers Mombasa and Al Bahiyah on July 12th. Both vessels have a capacity of roughly 2 million barrels of oil, placing the potential value of a full cargo at roughly USD 171 million before insurance, maintenance and transit costs are considered.
If continued attacks deter vessels from transiting the Strait, constrained oil flows could combine with increased insurance premiums and higher transport costs, pushing additional expenses through global supply chains and eventually onto consumers.
These effects are already visible when examining vessel movements. On July 15th, a total of five transits were recorded, three inbound and two outbound, with one of those ships being Iranian-flagged outbound. Daily throughput in deadweight tonnage (DWT) stood at 130,311 DWT, or just 1.27 percent of the 10.3 million DWT pre-conflict daily average. Meanwhile, approximately 450 vessels remain waiting to transit the Strait, including 120 tankers, 180 bulk carriers and 150 other vessels.
War risk premiums, the additional fees charged to insure vessels operating within conflict zones, have skyrocketed from a 0.15 percent pre-conflict rate to 5 percent, a more than 33-fold increase. Very large crude carriers (VLCCs) can be valued from USD 130 million to more than USD 170 million, meaning a five percent premium could add an additional cost of USD 6.5 million to USD 8.75 million per voyage. For a VLCC carrying 2 million barrels, that would amount to roughly USD 7.5 million, compared with approximately USD 2.225 million under Iran’s proposed USD 1-per-barrel toll combined with pre-conflict war-risk premiums.
However, the compounding effects extend beyond oil. Data from the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Strait of Hormuz Trade Tracker shows that while crude oil shipments had begun to recover marginally, liquefied natural gas (LNG) and fertilizer-related shipments remain at a virtual standstill, with zero outbound shipments currently recorded. Renewed escalations risk further restricting already depressed commodity flows, with approximately one-third of the world’s seaborne fertilizer trade and one-fifth of global LNG transiting through the Strait.
Using a volume index in which 100 represents average volume levels, the WTO recorded a volume index of 25.69 for LNG on July 5th, following nearly four months in which shipments were recorded on only four other days. Fertilizer-related shipments showed greater resilience, recording a volume index of 97.62 on June 23rd. However, no further fertilizer-related shipments have been recorded, leaving the trade flow at a standstill for more than three weeks.
These restrictions could be particularly damaging for energy- and food-importing economies, notably developing countries that spend significant shares of national income on essential imports of energy and food. Simultaneous increases in fuel, transportation, and agricultural inputs risk creating a broader inflationary shock. Higher fertilizer costs can increase agricultural production costs, while elevated energy and shipping expenses raise the cost of transporting goods from exporters to importers, leaving consumers exposed to several layers of the same disruption.
The disruption has also carried a significant human cost. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has warned against continued commercial transit through the Strait, with IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez urging shipowners, operators, and flag States, along with all relevant authorities to “avoid exposing seafarers to unnecessary danger by transiting the Strait.” At the same time, the United States has announced that it will resume a naval blockade targeting vessels transiting to and from Iranian ports. Iran, meanwhile, has framed its control over the Strait as a national security issue and has threatened that it will remain closed “until the end of America’s evils.”
At its 137th session, the IMO Council reaffirmed that the right of transit through straits used for international navigation “should not be threatened, impeded, denied, hampered, impaired or suspended,” reiterating that any measures taken by coastal states to regulate traffic in vital shipping lanes should be done in accordance with IMO regulations under the International Convention on the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS). The Council also stated that traffic through the Strait must “remain free of any tolls and charges, in accordance with international law, including the IMO Convention.”
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk warned that “Reports on the closure of the Strait of Hormuz are very alarming for their impact on human rights far beyond the region,” describing the Strait as “a vital lifeline on which millions are reliant.”
The dangers are also being borne directly by seafarers trapped in the Persian Gulf. Of approximately 20,000 seafarers stranded by the crisis, around 11,000 have been evacuated through an IMO-supported initiative. However, evacuation operations have reportedly been paused since June 25, leaving thousands still stranded.
The economic consequences of the initial disruption were already substantial before this latest escalation. According to the World Bank, global energy prices rose by 24 percent following the conflict’s onset, with fertilizer prices projected to rise by more than 30 percent in 2026. Renewed hostilities in the Strait now threaten to compound these pressures, demonstrating how insecurity within a narrow stretch of water can transmit costs across global supply chains, from ships at sea to businesses, households and economies around the world.
IPS UN Bureau Report