7 December 2022
by Sarah Morgan

Making the case for an ‘Integrated Mineral Supply Agreement’

The remit of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) should be broadened to tackle an estimated ‘infrastructure gap’ for decarbonisation, say authors of a new paper in Environmental, Science & Technology.

© Photo by Cytonn Photography on Unsplash

In Closing the Infrastructure Gap for Decarbonization: The Case for an Integrated Mineral Supply Agreement. the authors argue for the increase in the IRENA remit to include coordinating mission-critical metal processing functions in the drive for decarbonisation to mitigate issues associated with the current infrastructure gap.

The issues include growing international tensions and geopolitical events leading to a shift toward 'reshoring' and 'near-shoring' of mining processing capabilities as regional powers attempt to make metal supply chains more secure.

This will increase resilience, but these shifts can also dilute the overall effectiveness of the global mining supply network and subsequently hamper the world’s ability to close the green energy infrastructure gap, reports the paper.

The G20 is one potential forum for enabling an Integrated Mineral Processing Agreement under the auspices of IRENA.

Authors