Critical Minerals, the Climate Crisis and the Tech Imperium

This book examines the latest manifestations of resource competition. The energy transition and the digitalization of the global economy are both accelerating even as geopolitics driven by Sino-American hyper-competition become increasingly contentious. The volume brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars, policy makers, institutional stakeholders, and industry experts to analyze not only the transition itself, but also the implications that the need for uninterrupted access to unprecedented levels of raw materials generates. By framing the challenges ahead for global society, governance, industry, international power politics, and the environment, the book asks hard questions about the choices that need to be made to reach net zero by mid-century. Moreover, it sheds light on different facets of the growing risks to what have been global interdependent supply chains in a way that is nuanced, balanced, and practical, thus pushing back on some of the most sensational headlines that breed confusion and may lead policymakers to make more narrow and less effective decisions. The volume is an outcome of “Rich Rocks, the Climate Crisis and the Tech-imperium” a Summer Institute at Caltech and the Huntington that took place in July 2021.

Foreword (Morgan Bazilian and Dolf Gielen).- Introduction (Sophia Kalantzakos).- Section I.- Chapter 1. Between Rocks and Hard Places: Geopolitics of Net zero futures and the tech imperium (Sophia Kalantzakos).- Chapter 2. Interdependence vs. Geopolitics: Securitization and Partial Recoupling of U.S.-China Relations (Xiaoyu Pu).- Chapter 3. Securing Supply Chain Resiliency for Critical Rare Earth Metals (Kristin Vekasi).- Section II.- Chapter 4. Public Policy Toward Critical Materials: A False Dichotomy, a Messy Middle Ground, and Seven Guiding Principles (Roderick Eggert).- Chapter 5. Lessons from Three Decades in the Rare Earth Trenches (Constantine Karayannopoulos and Vasileios Tsianos).- Chapter 6. The Paradox of Green Growth: Challenges and Opportunities in Decarbonizing the Electric Vehicle Supply Chain. (Chris Berry).- Chapter 7. Raw material demands for the Green Transition. Risks, opportunities, and required actions to meet the 2030 climate targets. (Roland Gauß, Carsten Gellermann, Alexander Maurer).- Section III.- Chapter 8. Social and environmental impacts of rare earth mining and processing: Scoping and preliminary assessment (Julie Michelle Klinger).- Chapter 9. The Social Conundrum of Eco-centric Activism against Oceanic Minerals (Saleem Ali).- Chapter 10. The ESG Triangle: How Lithium Mining in Latin America Could Point the Way Toward Long-term Environmental and Social Value Strategies (Owen Pell).- Index.

Sophia Kalantzakos is Global Distinguished Professor in Environmental Studies and Public Policy at New York University Abu Dhabi.  Her research centers on the geopolitics of critical minerals, the transition to a net zero future, and the fourth industrial revolution. Her work, in particular, examines how resource competition in an era of fraught geopolitics has tilted the balance toward more securitized assessments of global interdependence. Moreover, she examines China’s global aspirations manifested in the belt and road initiative, Europe’s reckoning with a seismic push against both its normative and economic power, and the US’s re-evaluation of its leadership role in the global order. Her publications include China and the Geopolitics of Rare Earths (Oxford University Press, 2018; rev.2021) and The EU, US, and China Tackling Climate Change: Policies and Alliances for the Anthropocene (Routledge, 2017). She was a Rachel Carson (RCC) Fellow at LMU Munich in 2015 and 2018 and has served as a member of its Academic Advisory Board. She is currently the President of the RCC Society of Fellows. Recently she has been a Fung Global Fellow at the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies (PIIRS) and Senior Fellow in the Research Institute for the History of Science and Technology at Caltech and the Huntington.