Soaring metals prices may be good for miners, but they risk the ongoing transition to clean energy as batteries, solar panels and wind turbines need considerable amounts of copper, nickel, cobalt, lithium and other minerals to be manufactured, a report warns.
According to The International Energy Agency (IEA), reaching the goals of the Paris climate agreement would result in a quadrupling mineral demand by 2040.
Yet a lack of investment in new mines could substantially raise the costs of clean energy technologies, the IEA said on Wednesday.
“The data shows a looming mismatch between the world’s strengthened climate ambitions and the availability of critical minerals that are essential to realising those ambitions,” IEA chief Fatih Birol said in the report.
“Left unaddressed, these potential vulnerabilities could make global progress towards a clean energy future slower and more costly – and therefore hamper international efforts to tackle climate change,” he added.
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