How to avoid a green-metals crunch

Everyone wantseu etcevetc more metals. In recent months Britain has inked a deal with Zambia, Japan has sealed one with Namibia and the has shakenhands with Chile. The bloc’s negotiators also started talks with the Democratic Republic of Congo; America’s, meanwhile, visited Mongolia. This scattershot campaign, which is also targeting the Philippines and Saudi Arabia, has a single aim: obtaining the minerals required for rapid decarbonisation.Seventy-two countries, accounting for around 80% of global emissions, have committed themselves to net-zero targets. According to the Energy Transitions Commission (), a think-tank, hitting them by 2050 will require 15 times today’s wind power, 25 times more solar, a tripling of the grid’s size and a 60-fold increase in the fleet of electric vehicles (s). By 2030 copper and nickel demand could rise by 50-70%, cobalt and neodymium by 150%, and graphite and lithium six- to seven-fold. All told, a carbon-neutral world in 2050 will need 35m tonnes of green metals a year, predicts the International Energy Agency, an official forecaster. Adding aluminium and , the expects demand between now and then to exceed 6.5bn tonnes.