Closing the Infrastructure Gap for Decarbonization: The Case for an Integrated Mineral Supply Agreement

Abstract

Significant amounts of feedstock metals will be required to build the infrastructure for the green energy transition. It is currently estimated, however, that the world may be facing an "infrastructure gap" that could prevent us from meeting United Nations Sustainable Development Goal targets. Prior investigations have focused on the extractive aspects of the mining industry to meet these targets and on looming bottlenecks and regional challenges in these upstream market segments. Scant attention has been paid to the downstream processing segments of the raw materials value chain, which also has a high degree of market concentration. Growing international tensions and geopolitical events have resulted in a shift toward "reshoring" and "near-shoring" of mining processing capabilities as regional powers attempt to make metal supply chains more secure. While increasing resilience, these shifts can also dilute the overall effectiveness of the global mining supply network and subsequently hamper the world's ability to close the green energy infrastructure gap. We argue that broadening the remit of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) to include coordinating these mission-critical metal processing functions can mitigate these issues. The G20 is one potential forum for enabling an integrated mineral processing agreement under the auspices of IRENA.

Manufacturing reshoring and sustainable development goals: A home versus host country perspective

“…This issue is becoming increasingly relevant due to the widespread scarcity of certain raw materials and the growing dependency of the United States and EU on China and other foreign countries, especially in the case of critical 2 Les Tissages de Charlieu lancent un projet de relocalisation de la production de sacs dans la Loire -Actualité: industrie (#1260239; fashionnetwork.com). and rare earth materials heavily used in the electronics industry (Ali et al, 2022). As pointed out by Mhatre et al (2021), a gradual transition to the circular economy is occurring within the EU; however, several barriers are still present.…”

“…On the contrary, they should combine multilateral treaties with such countries with the implementation of back‐ and near‐shoring strategies. The latter ones should “a) promote diversification […]; b) influence standards [including the ones related to job conditions]; c) invest in infrastructure desperately needed for the circular economy” (Ali et al, 2022, p. 15287).…”

“…Finally, Ali et al (2022), focus their attention on minerals (e.g., lithium, cobalt) that are required to develop infrastructures supporting the decarbonization process (e.g., batteries, solar panels). The authors suggest that Western countries should not completely decouple from countries such as China and Russia for the upstream, midstream, and downstream activities included in the mineral SC.…”

Glass and a carbon‐free United States: What is glass's role in the upcoming green revolution?

“…Although mining is not currently a carbon-neutral process, there are feasible paths to be net climate neutral. 16,17 Climate neutral differs from carbon neutral, because it considers all greenhouse gas emissions, not just CO 2 . Sustainable mining is possible with the use of electrification, and can result in little to no carbon impact from the raw material stage to the point of arrival at a facility.…”

“…The glass supply chain begins with raw materials. Although mining is not currently a carbon‐neutral process, there are feasible paths to be net climate neutral 16,17 . Climate neutral differs from carbon neutral, because it considers all greenhouse gas emissions, not just CO 2 .…”