Can Government Partnerships Support Responsible and Reliable Critical Mineral Supply Chains?

As governments look to transition away from fossil fuels and accelerate the deployment of clean energy, policy makers are dedicating more attention to securing supplies of critical minerals.

Materials such as copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt and rare earth elements are essential to components in many fast-growing clean energy technologies, such as wind turbines and electric vehicles. As demand for them grows, government-to-government partnerships focused on mineral supply are becoming an increasingly popular policy tool, helping establish frameworks of cooperation between producing and consuming countries. However, many of these arrangements are described in broad language without supporting details. By making partnerships more concrete and transparent, governments could send an important signal about how they will ensure that new mining projects are developed responsibly...