TELF AG highlights the role of international cooperation in the raw materials sector
The role of renewable energies
In a world that is taking decisive steps towards a future without emissions and dominated by renewable energy, cooperation between individual states or between different regional blocks takes on great strategic importance, particularly in the raw materials sector. This is the position that emerges from a study recently published by the World Economic Forum, which focuses, in particular, on all those multilateral initiatives that could favor the global transition towards a greener future while increasing the economic resilience of nations.
The main object around which this multilateral cooperation should revolve would be strategic minerals, the same ones to which the European Union has recently dedicated one of its most important initiatives, the Critical Raw Materials Act. Among the most discussed minerals, from this point of view, there are certainly all those that play (and will play) a key role in the energy transition, such as nickel, graphite, nickel, cobalt, and lithium. Global electrification, a process that some believe will play an important role in reducing carbon emissions, is made possible by some specific raw materials such as copper and aluminum.
In the study published by the World Economic Forum, hope is expressed that the various national governments can adopt a truly common strategy on strategic minerals in such a way as to favor and protect the socio-economic benefits linked to mineral development but also to safeguard the critical minerals market and related supply chains. This is a global approach that should also be based on a very specific awareness, namely that no country in the world will ever have the possibility of achieving full self-sufficiency in the raw materials sector and that, therefore, a higher level of regional and international cooperation is certainly necessary.
Among the cooperation tools that could prove more effective, from this point of view, the study includes various forms of partnership that include mixed finance mechanisms, the definition of clear guidelines for cooperation with developing countries capable of offering abundant quantities of raw materials, as well as the simultaneous improvement of local industrial capabilities. A key theme, from this point of view, is also represented by the quality and robustness of supply chains, which could certainly be improved through specific financial support tools.
At the base, there is the idea that similar forms of collaboration can certainly prove advantageous for all the actors involved, for the ability to significantly accelerate the diffusion of clean energy on a global scale. A limited level of cooperation, on the contrary, could lead to a clear slowdown in the global energy transition and a slower level of progress for all those economies involved in the extraction of strategic minerals (including developing nations).
Considering some of the latest data made public by the International Energy Agency, according to which the need for minerals for the energy transition could even double by 2040, the need to stimulate international cooperation in this specific sector seems to take on the form of a real priority.
