On August 13, IDRC and the School of Public Policy (SPP) at Chiang Mai University held a Dialogue on Sustainable Development: Clean Energy, Critical Minerals and Environmental Governance, prior to the 5th International Conference on Burma/Myanmar Studies at Chiang Mai University, in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The event brought together researchers, practitioners, and policy stakeholders for a timely conversation on the links between clean energy, critical minerals, environmental governance, and sustainable development in Southeast Asia. As demand for critical minerals grows alongside the global energy transition, the dialogue explored how extraction could intersect with environmental pressures, local livelihoods, governance challenges, and transboundary river systems. Participants also discussed how communities experience and respond to slow-onset environmental risks, including questions of vulnerability, mobility, and adaptation.
The conversation underscored the importance of credible research, locally grounded perspectives, regional cooperation, and stronger environmental governance in shaping more sustainable and equitable policy responses. Thank you to everyone who contributed to such a thoughtful and engaging exchange, and to our partners at SPP for helping make the dialogue possible.
See a short write-up of the August meeting focused on Myanmar, along with a 3-minute video teaser below.
This summary captures the main themes and points raised during the Dialogue on Sustainable Development: Clean Energy, Critical Minerals and Environmental Governance. It is intended as a thematic record of the discussion rather than a verbatim or attributed account of individual interventions.
Opening Remarks
The dialogue opened with reflections on the importance of credible research, locally grounded development, inclusive dialogue, and regional cooperation. Participants noted the value of engaging a wide range of actors and highlighted ongoing regional efforts related to water security, drought and flood forecasting, and cooperation through institutions such as the Mekong River Commission.
The opening remarks also recognized the personal risks faced by individuals working on environmental governance and development issues in difficult political contexts, and acknowledged the role of researchers, practitioners, and community actors as agents of change.
Rare Earth Mining and Resource Governance in Myanmar
The first part of the dialogue examined the rapid expansion of rare earth mining in northern Myanmar, particularly in Kachin State. Mining activity has grown significantly since the 2021 coup, illustrating how conflict and political instability have not constrained resource extraction, but rather created conditions for its expansion in some contexts.
Myanmar has become an increasingly important source of rare earth minerals for China. This growth has raised questions about who controls extraction, who benefits from the industry, how revenues are distributed, and what consequences mining has for local communities.
The discussion also highlighted the environmental risks associated with mining, including deforestation, water contamination, labor exploitation, and the disruption of local livelihoods. Particular concern was raised regarding potential impacts on the Irrawaddy River system and communities that depend on it.
A related presentation explored the governance of natural resources in areas where authority is exercised by both state and non-state actors. Participants considered how control over mining areas, border trade, hydropower, and other natural resources intersects with broader questions of political authority, conflict, and legitimacy.
The discussion emphasized that rare earths are increasingly important not only for the global energy transition but also for strategic and industrial applications. This growing demand creates a tension between the global push for cleaner energy and the environmental and social costs associated with mineral extraction.
Arsenic Contamination and Transboundary Environmental Risk
The dialogue also focused on the environmental and health dimensions of mineral extraction, with particular attention to arsenic contamination.
Arsenic is a highly toxic substance that can have serious long-term health impacts, including increased cancer risk. However, participants emphasized that arsenic contamination is not caused exclusively by mining. It can also result from natural geological processes, geothermal activity, and other human activities.
Examples from Thailand and the wider Mekong region illustrated how arsenic can enter groundwater and river systems through both natural and human-made processes. This distinction is important because identifying the source of contamination is essential for designing appropriate policy and mitigation measures.
The Kok River was discussed as an example of a transboundary river system where pollution can affect communities across jurisdictions. Contaminants may travel through sediment, runoff, and wastewater, meaning that environmental impacts can extend far beyond the original source.
Participants emphasized the importance of scientific monitoring, prevention, mitigation, and regional cooperation. A life-cycle approach to sustainable mining was also discussed, highlighting the need to consider environmental impacts across the full process of extraction, processing, use, and waste management.
Disaster Risk, Vulnerability, and Human Mobility
Environmental contamination was also examined through a disaster-risk framework. Disaster risk was described as the interaction of three elements: hazard, vulnerability, and exposure.
In the context of the Kok River, arsenic contamination represents an immediate physical hazard. At a deeper level, there are also structural drivers of risk, including political and economic systems and the growing demand for minerals.
Vulnerability varies significantly across communities. Children, older people, women, ethnic minorities, migrants, stateless people, and lower-income households may face greater risks.
Exposure also extends beyond people living directly beside contaminated waterways. Communities may be exposed through fish consumption, agricultural irrigation, contaminated crops, or other pathways through the food chain. This framing highlighted the importance of understanding environmental contamination as a slow-onset risk, rather than only as a sudden disaster.
Habitability, Displacement, and Immobility
As environmental hazards intensify, they can gradually undermine the habitability of affected areas. Communities may begin to question whether they can continue to rely on river water to fish, farm, or maintain viable livelihoods.
Environmental degradation can therefore contribute to different patterns of mobility, including internal migration, cross-border movement, planned relocation, and displacement.
The ability to migrate is unevenly distributed. Moving requires money, social networks, information, and access to alternative livelihoods. Those with the fewest resources may be the least able to leave and can become effectively trapped in environmentally vulnerable areas.
Participants also noted that some people choose to remain because of strong cultural, social, and emotional ties to the place. Older residents, in particular, may prefer to remain in their communities despite environmental risks.
Adaptation and Environmental Justice
Short-term interventions can reduce exposure and vulnerability through measures such as water treatment, alternative water sources, and livelihood diversification. However, participants emphasized that reducing exposure does not necessarily address the underlying source of harm. If pollution or environmentally damaging practices continue, adaptation measures alone may not deliver environmental justice.
This raised broader questions of accountability, including how polluters can be held responsible for environmental damage and how the costs of extraction should be distributed.
The discussion drew on historical examples of industrial pollution, including Minamata disease in Japan, as well as cases of lead and cadmium contamination in Thailand. These examples illustrated how environmental harm can persist for decades and how affected communities may face difficult trade-offs between health, livelihood security, and remaining in place.
Policy Responses and Policy Entrepreneurship
Participants discussed the importance of bringing together several dimensions of policy change:
- scientific and social evidence that defines the problem;
- political engagement with decision-makers;
- feasible policy options developed by policymakers and bureaucracies; and
- media engagement and public awareness.
Researchers, civil society organizations, and other actors can play an important role as policy entrepreneurs, helping connect evidence, political attention, policy solutions, and public engagement.
Household surveys, focus groups, environmental monitoring, and other forms of community-level data were identified as important tools for understanding both environmental risks and their social consequences.
Discussion
The broader discussion returned to the relationship between natural resource extraction, conflict, and governance in Myanmar. Participants considered how resource control is shaped by multiple actors and how extractive industries interact with conflict economies, political authority, and regional geopolitical interests.
Questions were also raised about the legitimacy of natural resource governance in areas where authority is contested. The conversation further explored how contaminants move through river systems and how pollution generated in one location can create downstream impacts elsewhere. This reinforced the need for transboundary environmental governance and cooperation. Climate change was discussed as an additional factor that can compound existing environmental and social risks.
Participants also challenged the assumption that migration necessarily represents a failure to adapt. Human mobility has historically been a common response to changing environmental conditions, and migration can be a legitimate adaptation strategy for some communities.
At the same time, relocation presents significant practical and political challenges, particularly when entire communities need access to suitable land, housing, livelihoods, and social infrastructure.
The discussion cautioned against adaptation strategies that simply attempt to keep communities in place through engineering interventions without addressing underlying risks. In some cases, such approaches may result in maladaptation or transfer risk rather than reduce it.
Key Takeaway
The dialogue highlighted a central tension in the global energy transition: growing demand for critical minerals can generate significant environmental, social, and governance challenges in the places where those minerals are extracted. Addressing these challenges requires more than technical mitigation. It also requires stronger governance, credible scientific evidence, regional and transboundary cooperation, accountability for environmental harm, and greater attention to the experiences and priorities of affected communities.
Listen to the podcast Price of Raw Power on Insight Myanmar.