Australia has the chance to leverage its critical mineral deposits for huge economic gain, but will it also benefit environmentally?
By Susan Park and Ainsley Elbra
The impacts of the climate crisis are set to worsen in the years to come, with extreme heat and more severe weather events among the most obvious.
But countries such as Australia are still not doing enough to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, despite having an abundance of critical resources to do so.
Projections suggest that overall Australia will have more hot days, more intense episodes of extreme rainfall, sea levels will rise and our oceans will become more acidic.
Southern Australia will experience longer droughts, southern mainland Australia less rainfall, southern and eastern Australia harsher fire weather and there will be less frequent but more intense tropical cyclones.
Yet despite this outlook, the plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions mandated by the 2015 Paris Agreement are insufficient.
The proposed government measures will not keep temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming above pre-industrial levels.
Energy transition away from fossil fuels is at the heart of any genuine climate mitigation measure. One that is working is the shift to renewable sources like solar and wind energy for electricity.
The argument to decarbonise is no longer merely an environmental one, but also economic.
The economic argument for switching to renewable energy
The IPCC AR6 Synthesis Report notes there were dramatic cost reductions for solar (85 percent), wind (55 percent) and lithium-ion batteries (85 percent) between 2010 and 2019, as well as a dramatic increase in their deployment — more than ten times for solar and more than 100 times for electric vehicles (EVs) — over the same time period.
In Australia, solar and wind are now cheaper than fossil fuels for electricity generation and storage.
Renewable energy however is much more mineral intensive than energy generated using fossil fuels. The need to decarbonise quickly is driving a global race to secure so-called critical minerals.
Critical minerals refer to metals and minerals that currently have no viable substitutes and have a high supply risk.
For example, neodymium, which is one of 17 rare earth elements, is critical for EVs and is also used in the magnets found in wind turbines.
The supply risk is that critical minerals are more site-specific than fossil fuels — deposits of them that are economically viable to mine are found in a smaller number of countries.
China produces more than 90 percent of rare earth elements and also dominates the processing of copper, lithium, nickel and cobalt, leading to supply-chain vulnerabilities.
Aussie advantages
Australia is well suited to transition to renewables.
Not only does it have an abundance of sun, wind, land and sea, but it also has a moderate to high potential of deposits of more than 20 critical minerals, and is already the largest producer of lithium in the world, the third largest producer of cobalt, and the fourth largest producer of rare earths.
There is considerable scope to increase production from existing mines, and with 80 percent of the continent underexplored, potentially locate new deposits.
Australia is seeking to capitalise on its natural assets and long history of mining through the federal government’s Future Made in Australia Act, which seeks to invest $AU22.7 billion in a suite of policies for transitioning Australia to a clean energy superpower.
This includes $AU7.1 billion for critical minerals processing and $AU3.2 billion for manufacturing clean energy technologies, both of which have significant political, economic, environmental and social challenges.
Investing in the processing of critical minerals makes political sense.
Global demand for lithium alone is expected to increase 4,000 percent in coming decades, forcing competitors and trade partners to diversify imports and providing opportunities for Australia.
Managing our relationship with China
Ongoing tensions between the US and China continue to raise the stakes over accessing critical minerals for the energy transition.
This has led to a turn away from unfettered free markets and a return to industrial policy through the US’s Inflation Reduction Act , the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act and the Future Made in Australia Act.
While the Australian act seeks to reduce reliance on China for processing critical minerals and therefore increase national security, the economic and environmental costs remain.
Economically, the issue is how to compete rather than trade with China.
As analysts have pointed out, Australia can move into minerals processing and value-adding activities such as manufacturing, but investment and price are key challenges.
In terms of investment, to access benefits from the US policy, Australian mining companies must not have Chinese investment of over 25 percent.
This rules out the world’s largest lithium mine in Western Australia, which is 26 percent-owned by the Chinese company Tianqi Lithium Energy. Chinese companies continue to seek shares in Australian miners.
As a relative latecomer entering into the processing and manufacturing markets, Australia will also need to compete with Chinese firms which may already have partnerships with Australian mining companies.
Australia’s comparative advantages include the capacity to accelerate critical minerals projects and the ability to attract private capital through the provision of public infrastructure and investment, with flow-on effects for employment and prosperity.
Potential job losses have already been averted after the government added nickel to the critical minerals list, in the wake of BHP’s announcement that it was suspending its Nickel West mining and smelting operation from October.
Nickel’s addition to the list provides BHP and billionaire Andrew Forrest’s Wyloo metals access to the federal government’s critical minerals fund.
While growth in the sector will bring employment, this must be balanced against the potential loss of mining jobs in declining sectors such as coal.
There are also serious questions about whether Australia has a sufficient supply of skilled mining labour.
Questions should also be asked about widening access to government subsidies for companies, like BHP, which have been engaged in long-running disputes with the Australian Tax Office.
Compared with nations suich as China, Australia also has high environmental and social standards, which are important to ensure a sustainable and just transition.
These also present an opportunity to market minerals for export that are certified as sustainable or ethical, a potential selling point for EU and US customers.
Yet it remains to be seen as to whether customers in these markets will pay higher prices for critical minerals during a climate emergency.
Environmental challenges
How to drive a race to the top remains a vital issue given there is no multilateral agreement on minimum environmental and social standards.
Even with Australia’s higher environmental and social standards, environmental challenges remain.
Processing critical minerals has barriers to ensuring the ability to manage the use of water, the safe management of toxic waste and pollution, and protecting biodiversity.
Australia also needs to seriously engage with First Nations people, given that more than 50 percent of critical minerals projects are on Indigenous land where traditional owners have a right to negotiate.
Currently there is little benefit flowing to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders from mining, while the destruction of the Juukan Gorge heritage site by Rio Tinto in 2020 remains a vivid reminder of the risks.
There are big challenges for critical minerals mining in Australia, but the opportunity to create new industries and transition our world away from fossil fuels is an opportunity that needs to be seized.
Professor Susan Park is Professor of Global Governance in International Relations at the University of Sydney.
Dr Ainsley Elbra is a senior lecturer in international political economy at the University of Sydney.
This research is funded by an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project grant. Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.