Critical minerals, the energy transition and associated crimes

Abstract

Critical minerals are of vital importance for many sectors of modern life, including technology, energy, food production, medicine, health, transportation, construction, water supply, space, cyberspace, information technology, military systems and national security. The future supply of these minerals is essential, and is of particular importance to facilitate the energy transition, vehicle electrification, information communications and digital technologies. These critical minerals are also required if we are to attain global net zero targets and to try to limit increases in global temperature as determined at the 2015 Paris conference and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). However, some critical minerals are associated with crime, including human rights violations, security risks and environmental degradation. Corruption, crime and violence linked with the exploration, mining, processing and trading of critical minerals tend to be centred on, but not limited to, countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Here, organised crime groups, cartels and armed gangs are empowered to facilitate the illegal mining of critical minerals, and their onward supply into legal global supply chains. As the energy transition continues to increase the demand for critical minerals, the circular economy and in particular the supply of black mass (the product from end-of-life lithium-ion batteries), could in part supplement the possible short-fall in critical battery mineral supplies from conventional geological mineral resources. There is a clear requirement for a multinational, multi-agency solution to mitigate the risks associated with crimes in the critical minerals sector, which could for example include regulations, standardisations, traceability and provenance determination systems and greater transparency of financial investments.