Over the first half of the 2020s, the world has seen an overwhelming series of announcements for net-zero emission targets, and at the turn of the second half, a lot of countries have started making irreversible choices to achieve these pledges whilst still figuring out the cost of doing so. The cost, albeit, is not in dollars or any other currency but in terms of energy and the emerging realm of critical minerals. These minerals, driving the chip and semiconductor race in a fast-moving technical world, have unleashed a new sub-surface-to-socket trap, which now defines the global energy geopolitics. 

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The rare earth minerals have taken the world by storm, with the energy-mineral lock-ins evolving into a major distribution story. While countries like India, and others in the Global South, possess a lot of critical mineral reserves and maximum anticipated extraction capacities, the existing bottlenecks in the global supply chains constrain their accessibility to these very minerals. What was claimed to be the progressive answer to energy transition and climate commitments across nations has become an uncomfortable truth in its very foundation, with the lock-ins working well for the Global North but putting the Global South’s energy sovereignty in shambles. As Dickens would have put it, ‘The energy-mineral access has brought the best of the times and the worst of times for the world, dependent on where you reside’. 

While the Global North has always been able to capture the asymmetric technological gains, it is countries like India that bear the localised energy-environmental devastations and social displacements whenever a new technological niche is created. The critical minerals story is no different with the intensive extraction pressures projected to come through the next decade, without any equitable development, processing sovereignty or affordable energy transition in near sight. This structural misalignment scars the countries in the Global South, making them a net importer of processed goods coming out of their own raw resources. If this status quo persists, then the climate commitments and leadership that India and other countries have showcased in the recent past, through Conference of Parties (CoPs) and G20 summits, become hollow, and they start championing the rules-based order while subsidising the Global North. The key question, therefore, that emerges and one that India and other Global South members cannot dodge is: ‘Are energy-mineral lock-ins the progressive transition solutions for Global South’s energy sovereignty that they promise to be?’

The energy-mineral nexus demands four levers for achieving true energy sovereignty – energy-mineral accessibility, resource sovereignty, aligned employment and technological knowledge. Yet, these levers have always fallen short with the current policy architectures in Global South countries, splitting the assets into separate, disadvantageous streams.

Countries in the Global South, like India, extract minerals, only for them to be processed in the Global North and imported back to fulfil their economic and technical ambitions. Despite charting a long critical minerals list, India remains heavily import-dependent. It also hosts an incredible renewable energy potential and yet ends up with expensive green energy. Why? Because the minerals leave, and expensive batteries are shipped back in return. The paradox is resource-rich places facing poor accessibility of the same resources and sinking into a resource curse. This leads us to understanding the failure of the other three levers:

  • Resource Sovereignty: This would only have been true in its essence when the countries could have had a combination of extraction, processing, manufacturing and availability of end-use products for their populations. This fails because the Global South only commands the lowest value step at present. India’s National Critical Mineral Mission, on similar lines, promises self-reliance, but the exports contradict the vision. True sovereignty would demand processing control and not just mining rights.
  • Employment Lock-ins at Extraction: The populations engaged in steering energy transition often find themselves embroiled in low-wage, hazardous jobs with no sufficient scale of improvement or re-skilling opportunities for moving to higher-value jobs in processing and manufacturing. India's mining workforce, comprising largely of tribal communities, faces the same while doing sub-surface works without any pathays to navigate and reposition themselves into manufacturing or R&D.
  • Technology Transfer Illusions: The creation of tech transfer-based knowledge economy is weakened by the licensing agreements of large firms, often Global North in origin. Knowledge and technology often bypass the countries in the Global South. 

Figure 1: Ideal Working Energy-Mineral Nexus for Global South

It is evident that the current solutions and these failing levers exhibit a critical geographic mismatch and spatial fragmentation. Current policy architectures split the energy-mineral lock-ins into disadvantageous streams, undermining the very energy sovereignty the Global South has been advocating for. Figure 1 illustrates what an ideal working energy-mineral nexus would mean, while Figure 2 depicts the limitations of the current solutions leading to failure of these lock-ins.


Figure 2: Failure of Current Solutions for Energy-Mineral Nexus in the Global South

India's Hour: A case for localised energy-minerals commons

While the case has been rested for why the status quo would not deliver, countries from the Global South still need to chart alternate strategies for their energy sovereignty. India can substantially lead in the segment by building a replicable strategy while fundamentally restructuring the supply chains and their control nodes. This can only be materialised with a Localised Energy Minerals Commons for the Global South, where extraction, processing, manufacturing and final deployment can be territorially embedded, socially governed and strategically coordinated, both for near-term regulations and long-term progressive transitions. 

The idea of Localised Energy-Mineral Commons translates to a regional coalition framework which can cater to the mineral-rich resource pools of the Global South while building regional processing and manufacturing capacities. This would simulate active control over energy mineral lock-in-backed transition while providing opportunities to the local demography. The ‘Common’ is not meant to isolate the Global South from existing global markets but to revamp participation through localised processing, regional manufacturing, and sovereign infrastructure design, backed by technology and knowledge transfer from the Global North, albeit adapted for local realities. 

India has the potential to coordinate this architecture by steering triangular cooperation, pacts and supply chains. India is currently at the helm of multilateral cooperation in the Global South with its ongoing BRICS presidency, along with the active engagements through trade deals with the Global North and multitudes of pilot projects experimented with, launched and financed in the country through partnerships with multilateral finance institutions. It can greatly employ these to dictate the energy transition terms in the Global South and get it out of the sub-surface socket trap laid by the Global North. Such a system would enable African, Asian and Latin American nations to respectfully come onto the centre stage of geopolitics, backed by multilateral institutions like the African Union, ASEAN and BRICS and funded by development banks like Asian Development Bank, the New Development Bank, etc., to put forth a new understanding of energy transition discourse.

Making the Commons Bankable

For the ‘Minerals Commons' to translate into practical, bankable mechanics for the Global South, India needs to invest heavily into manufacturing and processing capacities through R&D and operationalise specific mineral trade zones within the next decade, for example, the India-Chile-Bolivia Lithium triangle. This would not only connect the extraction, processing and manufacturing hubs together but also pave way for a revenue-sharing model which stays within the Global South and ensures equitable gains across all the nations involved. 

India’s existing multilateral engagements can be leveraged for these innovations and financing mechanisms like ‘Mineral Transitions Bonds’ on the lines of climate transition bonds. This would create a tranche backed by future processing revenues, and not just sovereign guarantees in the Global South. The large consumer market in India can chart a huge technological leverage for the expansion of the knowledge economy in the Global South by utilising Global North IP localisation while offering them sales access. The processing blueprint India would gain in return can prove to be a gateway for the South's success story of the localised commons. Additionally, countries in the North and China need to be integrated and not confronted for the long-term feasibility of the ‘Commons’. The scale of the Global South would create diversified demands that can well be complemented with these existing processing giants, who are already on the path of optimising their energy transitions. Localised commons can only exist when the blueprints extracted by countries like India can be utilised. This would place the entire Global South on the centre stage of global energy geopolitics, with mineral extraction staying sovereign, processing becoming regional, and manufacturing serving local needs.

Navigating the Obstacles for Mineral Sovereignty

India holds huge potential to lead the way through ‘Localised Commons’. However, it still faces four navigable hurdles, each testing its strategic autonomy and leadership for and within the Global South:

  • A strong political will is required for coordination over individual, national egos in the Global South. India must champion the profit-sharing pacts rather than individual bilateral deals with the Global North and selective players from the South. India’s leadership would require consistency between rhetoric and the mineral reality it faces presently.
  • Geopolitical pressures would increasingly intensify as green protectionism increases in the global North. India's response needs to be irresistible to navigate this through. For mineral extraction and access to billions in the consumer market, India needs to establish a clear barter for gaining processing and manufacturing capabilities. This could only compel cooperation with the South and not continuation of hegemony from the North in energy geopolitics.
  • Capital Mobilisation needs to be scaled, as it can only defeat single-nation efforts. Multilateral banks and finance institutions need to pool billions through revenue-sharing bonds backed by processing margins, for achieving energy sovereignty.
  • Technical Capacity Expansion would stumble, and pilots would face inefficiencies. India needs to rope in "learning-by-doing" triumphs to establish the ground for a strong ‘Commons’. Early refineries and processing units would lag Global North plants, but long-term compounding is the only way to achieve unmatched regional expertise over time.

These obstacles test India's multilateral credibility for the establishment of ‘Localised Mineral Commons’, but none prove insurmountable for the strategic autonomous power it brings to the table while developing an agenda to push energy and mineral sovereignty in the Global South. The question with these very navigable obstacles changes to: Do Global South nations possess the collective will to seize the moment? The window remains open but for how much longer would depend on the choices these countries make today!

The restructuring required for Commons to gain ground serves mutual interests for the Global South and the Global North. With both parties benefitting, cooperation becomes rational, and the Global South’s answer would determine if the energy transition would ever be genuinely global. The sub-surface to socket traps can only shatter when countries like India come together to chart the ‘Commons’ path! 


About the Author

Namrata is a Doctoral Candidate and Senior Research Fellow in the Energy Studies Programme at the Centre for the Study of the World Economy, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Zoology from Hindu College, University of Delhi and is currently researching Transport Decarbonisation in India and other BRICS countries.


This essay is a part of the Spring'26 issue of The India Way—'Breaking Point: India and the Future of World Order'