Low rates of investment in the global mining sector have put the global energy transition at risk, widening the supply gap in critical minerals like copper, Rio Tinto chairman Dominic Barton said on Monday.
The global effort to slash climate-warming carbon dioxide emissions will depend on securing large supplies of minerals like copper, lithium and cobalt required to build electric vehicles, solar plants and wind farms. Barton said the world isn’t just facing a shortage of minerals, but also a shortage of the capital required to dig new mines, which take far longer to develop than before.
He said the industry needed to build trust, and had not done a great job in persuading the public of the vital role it will play in a global decarbonization project that could require more copper in the next 25 years than has ever before been produced.