There are two common lenses through which people study critical minerals, those to want to study the demand for minerals for the energy transition, in order to decarbonise energy use and systems to combat climate change, and those concerned with how geopolitical tensions between the United States and China is rewriting the international landscape through the race for critical minerals.
This is geopolitics: where the US and China are seeking dominance over territories with resources necessary for defense, advanced technologies, and renewables.
Of course, these two lenses overlap: Thea Riofrancos argued that what we are witnessing is the ‘security-sustainability nexus’ where the US and the West is now trying to ‘de-risk’ its reliance on China for processed critical minerals on which modern economies rely.
This is leading to a fractured international system, where both cost and competition, now also sit alongside state’s political interests and alliances.
