Environmental and Climate Change Impacts of Extractive Industries and Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI)

The Environmental and Climate Change Impacts of Extractive Industries and the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) Research was supported by the International Renaissance Foundation and commissioned by the Democratic Practice Program and EPAIU between October, 2020 and March, 2021.

The findings served as a basis for establishing climate change links to the extractive industries, that is based on two main approaches:

• Extractive industries begin a life cycle that leads to climate change;
• Extractive industries are a direct contributor to emissions and other climate change impacts. (For example, according to Global Resource Outlook 20192, metals and non-metallic minerals extraction and primary processing made up 10 percent each of the global climate change impact, while the corresponding indicator for fossil fuels (oil, gas and coal) was 16 percent in 2017.

The EITI Standard 2019, as it reads now, requires disclosure of all material environmental payments to governments and encourages the disclosure of information related to environmental impacts of extractive industries.