Towards advancing the Global South’s understanding of mineral criticality: implications of the North–South geopolitical confrontations on critical minerals

Abstract

The North–South critical minerals conflict, traced back to the 1975 UN General Assembly resource confrontation, is becoming so pronounced that it may slow down or increase the costs associated with the energy transition. To reveal the geopolitical implications of criticality, particularly in weaker Global South countries, this study uses qualitative content analysis to analyse the historical conceptualisation of strategic and critical minerals from 1918 to 2024 and the emerging methodologies from different countries post-2010. The study reveals that criticality was developed from self-interested terms, and there have been some efforts to reframe it as a global concept to promote cooperation in fighting climate change. However, the study notes that the increasing use of self-interested criticality methodologies by China and Global North countries contradicts re-framing criticality as a global concept. Re-framing criticality as a global concept, despite the continued use of geopolitically skewed metrics, may help Global South countries to easily forget criticality’s controversial issues, particularly the Global South’s interest in having a share in global manufacturing. The study concludes that criticality is an important tool that informs international and domestic resource policy. However, it is a scalable, localised concept. Global South countries must localise the criticality to avoid contributing to their own demise, as the concept is non-altruistic.