Destruction of International Trade Due to Climate Change Disagreement

The annual report of the International Energy Commission was designed in such a way as to be the framework on which the COP26 World Climate Conference will take place in Glasgow (October 31 – November 12, 2021). According to the official website of COP26 (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) (https://ukcop26.org), the main goal of the COP26 meeting is “to reduce CO2 emissions by 2030”.

RES and the critical minerals for them

To achieve these goals, countries will have to move quickly to complete the phasing out of coal for electricity generation, to replace, if not completely, high-quality internal combustion vehicles with electric vehicles and to increase the rate of RES generation of electricity. .

RES, however, rely to a very high degree on the extraction (upstream) and processing (downstream) of critical minerals. This is an axiom and not a hypothesis since the construction of RES technology must include the critical minerals required for them.

Achieving a global zero CO2 footprint is inextricably linked to the supply of critical minerals. But the IEA report devoted only six pages of analysis and guidance to critical minerals.

The Critical minerals

The EU, for its part, defines a list of 30 minerals as critical minerals. The US, on the other hand, has a list of 35 critical minerals. Given these lists of critical minerals, it shows that both the EU and the US are vulnerable to fluctuations in the supply of these critical minerals.

Rare earths, however, which are 17 different types of minerals, are included as a common category, as a mineral. If both the US and the EU stop considering rare earths as a common mineral, then this list of critical minerals for the US is 51 = (35 – 1) + 17 and for the EU 46 = ( 30 – 1) + 17, respectively.

China has complete control over both downstream and upstream (mining and metallurgy) at 86.2% of the 51 critical minerals on the US list. Fluctuations on the supply side of this critical mineral for specific levels of demand, cause shortages in the supply chain of many products and increase their prices.

In addition, China has accumulated a surplus of 23,000 patents for the upstream processing of rare earths relative to the West and mainly to the United States.

China holds more rare earth patents each year than the rest of the world. But China, for its own energy self-sufficiency, is constantly building coal-fired power plants and is therefore not participating in COP26.

The mistakes of the West in its initiative to abolish coal-fired and nuclear-powered power plants, respectively, focusing on RES (EU green transition) is catastrophic in terms of energy efficiency and cost of living, due to its fragmentation of trade (supply chain).

When the ordered products are delayed from 6 to 10 months from the moment of their creation, this is a disaster for the trade.

Combined with a drastic reduction in the supply of raw materials to the supply chain, it is causing prolonged disaster in production and trade.

About the author

The Liberal Globe is an independent online magazine that provides carefully selected varieties of stories. Our authoritative insight opinions, analyses, researches are reflected in the sections which are both thematic and geographical. We do not attach ourselves to any political party. Our political agenda is liberal in the classical sense. We continue to advocate bold policies in favour of individual freedoms, even if that means we must oppose the will and the majority view, even if these positions that we express may be unpleasant and unbearable for the majority.

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