On Thursday, September 12, WITA will host a panel at the WTO Public Forum in Geneva, Switzerland to explore how the WTO can help foster a circular economy for critical minerals. Find more information here and below.

In 2019, at the height of the trade war with the United States, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited a rare earth magnet factory in Jiangxi Province. At the time, the visit was interpreted as “muscle flexing” by China’s leader to remind Washington of its dependence on Beijing for the supply of rare earths. Rare earth elements (REEs) – a group of 17 critical metals – are indispensable components in military defense systems, consumer electronics and renewable energy technologies. Despite more than a decade of sustained efforts by Western countries and companies to loosen China’s grip, Beijing, by far remains the top player in the REE global mining, processing and refining sectors. 

Xi’s visit also conveyed a broader Chinese goal in the Rare Earths sector that goes beyond mining: maintaining leadership in the downstream industrial supply chains of processing, refining, and magnet production. While the semiconductor war gets more attention, there is another tech battle underway in the rare earths supply chains as China continues to tighten its control over what it calls a “state resource” and its supporting technologies. 

The Western rush to build China-free supply chains with both upstream and downstream industries is masking the bigger technological challenge of establishing a sustainable processing capacity. Given the stakes, a targeted approach is required to solve the processing tech puzzle through investments in R&D, international partnerships, and diffusion of alternate methods. 

Rare Earths, Rarer Tech? 

In 1992, while visiting Baotou, Inner Mongolia, one of China’s biggest rare earth mines, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping famously said, “The Middle East has oil, China has rare earths.” He was referring to the country’s resource endowment of over 30% of the world’s reserves. But unlike the Middle Eastern oil producing countries who primarily drill and export crude, China built an entire ecosystem around the rare earths, from mineral production and processing to manufacturing finished products, and most importantly, rare earth magnets.

China has maintained leadership at every step up the ladder. Though its global production share dipped from a staggering 97% in 2011 to around 70% in 2022, it still controls over 85% of processing capacity. China has an effective monopoly over processing major heavy rare earths – Dysprosium (Dy) and Terbium (Tb), and Light Rare Earths – Neodymium (Nd) and Praseodymium (Pr).

Environmental impact is often cited as one of the main reasons for China’s emergence as a rare earth powerhouse, but the technological aspect is less discussed. From 1950 to October 2018, China filed over 25,000 rare earth patents, surpassing the US’ 10,000. Over decades, Chinese engineers perfected the solvent extraction process to refine REEs which plays a critical role in ensuring China’s primacy. Though the technology originated in the United States, environmental and regulatory concerns made domestic rare earth development unfeasible. 

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08/29/2024 | Nayan Seth | The Wilson Center’s New Security Beat

Great power competition between the United States and China centres on technological supremacy. This extends beyond future-defining technologies such as high-end chip manufacturing, advanced AI, and quantum computing to include the supply chains underpinning these technologies, particularly critical minerals.

As the clean energy transition accelerates, critical minerals such as cobalt, lithium, and rare earth elements have become buzzwords in business, international relations, and sustainability.

Yet amid the scramble for these well-known resources, another metal – antimony – has quietly emerged as another keenly contested resource. With China’s recent announcement of export restrictions on this metal, the challenges of balancing supply and demand are intensifying, raising concerns over supply chain vulnerabilities and fueling a new form of competition among great powers.

Antimony, a lustrous silvery-grey metalloid, is scarce in nature and unevenly distributed globally. It is, however, critical for producing high-tech and defence products, including flame-retardant materials, certain semiconductors, and super hard materials. As with many critical minerals, China dominates the global antimony supply chain. The country holds the world’s largest deposit, accounting for approximately 32% of global antimony resources, yet it produces more than 48% of global output.

China’s move to restrict the export of antimony, ostensibly to safeguard “national security and interests”, is set to take effect on 15 September. While these restrictions are not explicitly targeted at any specific country, the geopolitical implications are significant. China has gradually reduced its antimony production over the past few years to limit strategic stockpiling. As a result, the announcement has driven up prices, potentially disrupting global supply chains. The impact is particularly acute for the United States, which sourced 63% of its antimony imports from China.

China’s export control of this critical metal might appear a calculated move within the broader framework of resource nationalism. Beyond safeguarding strategic resources and preventing over-exploitation, these controls reinforce China’s leadership in the global antimony industry, enhancing its influence over the international allocation of this critical mineral. This move, thus, is not just about acquiring and protecting resources; it is also about denying rivals a strategic advantage.

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09/02/2024 | Marina Yue Zhang | The Lowy Institute’s The Interpreter

The tussle over critical raw materials

Critical raw materials (CRMs) are the bedrock of the world’s renewable energy systems. As economies around the world are committing to decarbonization, demand for critical minerals—the key components of clean technologies powering the green transition—is swiftly outpacing supply: the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts that the global energy sector’s requirements for energy transition minerals could quadruple by 2040. Confronted with growing competition for control over critical mineral supply chains, governments worldwide have implemented new policies, marshaled funding, and forged alliances to protect their access to these essential materials.

Although concerns over CRM supplies were raised as early as 2008, supply chain insecurities exposed during the Covid-19 pandemic and the challenges of reducing the EU’s energy dependencies in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine catapulted the issue of reliable access to energy transition minerals to the top of the EU’s political agenda.

The need to reduce dependencies on the EU’s access to CRMs figured prominently in Ursula von der Leyens political guidelines which were presented to the European Parliament on July 18th. She underscored the need to create a secondary market for CRMs, but also underlined that the EU need to diversify its supply and aggregate its demand as well as a need to boost European investment in the sector.

While we are still awaiting Mario Draghi’s report on the EU’s competitiveness, access to CRMs are also expected to be a central theme here. Speaking on April 16, 2024, Mario Draghi, the former president of the European Central Bank, thematized the urgency of securing Europe’s strategic autonomy in critical raw materials value chains. In a world where global superpowers such as the United States and China are turning to protectionist policies to shore up their CRM supply, the EU, Draghi underlined, needs “a comprehensive strategy covering all stages of the critical mineral supply chain.” 

The Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), which entered into force on May 23 of this year, is the EU’s initial attempt to build such a strategic approach. The regulation focuses on measures the EU can implement domestically to increase its raw materials resilience: ramping up extraction at home, increasing circularity and recycling efforts, and fostering innovation in alternative technologies. By 2030, 10% of all the EU’s annual consumption of strategic raw materials is to be extracted domestically and 40% is to be processed within the EU. At least 15% of the EU’s annual consumption is to come from recycled sources. According to observers, these targets set by the EU are widely ambitious and will most likely not be achieved by 2030.

The EU, however, will never be entirely self-sufficient in supplying the critical raw materials it requires and will always rely on CRM imports. Even in the best-case scenario where the CRMA’s goals are reached, 90% of the extraction and 60% of the processing of the EU’s yearly requirements will still occur overseas. Currently, geospatial concentration of supply chains leaves Europe’s critical raw material supply—and with it, Europe’s climate ambitions—vulnerable to supply disruptions, external shocks, and the tactics of trade wars.

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09/01/2024 | Ditte Brasso Sørensen & Cecilia Yearsley | Tænketanken Europa

Achievement of sustainability goals is an epic task for developing economies that still strive to fulfil their basic needs. The availability of limited resources in the developing world vis-à-vis the ever-increasing demand poses further challenges to developing economies willing to transition into circular economies. Reverse logistics (RL) can facilitate this transition towards a circular economy (CE) by maximizing resource utilization and minimizing waste, contributing to sustainability goals… Organizations can increase customer satisfaction, promote environmental sustainability, and gain a competitive edge in the market by creating a strategic plan for reverse logistics. Organizations may lower costs and contribute to a more sustainable and ecologically responsible supply chain by improving visibility across the reverse logistics process. The results serve as a framework for decision-making in RL towards sustainable development. Managers and policymakers can formulate more robust and realistic decisions that align with “maximizing profits,” “saving the planet,” “social concerns,” and, most importantly, “consumer concerns” in the circular economy ecosystem. Several implications are derived, leading to increased competitiveness and resilient business strategies…

The Circular Economy (CE) aims to reduce waste and maximize resource utilization, making a significant contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The CE is a strategic plan to address our unsustainable resource consumption and help businesses better understand the natural inputs that sustain them. The idea of a circular economy has drawn increasing attention, particularly from scientists, consultants, lawyers, and lawmakers who approach the topic from a more sustainable society perspective. Key principles of the circular economy include closing the loop, resource efficiency, design for longevity and recyclability, and a shift to service-based models…

The circular economy, which promotes reducing the number of materials disposed of in landfills and incinerators and returning the residues to productive business cycles, is founded on the core idea that products must be given a longer shelf life. Primary actors like consulting firms, NGOs, and legislative and governmental bodies have initiated numerous measures for implementing the circular economy, such as the 4Rs (reduce, recycle, reuse, recover), waste reduction, eco-effectiveness and eco-efficiency, and stock optimization. Organisations frequently use various management techniques in the supply chain to enhance sustainability.

Reverse logistics, which streamlines a circular economy by taking, making, using, reusing, repairing, and recycling, has become central to discussions on gathering and distributing goods . Reverse logistics is an important component of the circular economy as it allows for the sustainable management of product life cycles, ensuring that resources and products are properly recovered, reused, refurbished, or recycled. This process eliminates waste, reduces the demand for raw resources, and lowers the environmental impact of manufacturing and consumption. Reverse logistics promotes the principles of a circular economy by closing the loop in supply chains, ensuring that resources are used for as long as feasible and fostering sustainability. This helps to advance sustainable development by preserving natural resources, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and stimulating economic growth through new business opportunities and green jobs, ultimately leading to a more resilient and environmentally friendly economy. However, little is understood about reverse logistics’ role in the circular economy.

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08/20/2024 | Harshad Sonar, Bishal Dey Sarkar, Prasad Joshi, Nikhil Ghag, Vardhan Choubey & Sandeep Jagtap | ScienceDirect