Abstract
The extractable ores of the world's geologically scarcest mineral resources (e.g. antimony, molybdenum and zinc) may be exhausted within several decades to a century, if their extraction continues to increase. This paper explores the likelihood that these scarce mineral resources can be conserved in time for future generations without intervening but instead simply relying on the price mechanism of the free market system. First we discuss the role of geological scarcity in the long-term price development of mineral resources. Then, to see whether geological scarcity affects the price of minerals we compare the historical trends in the prices of geologically scarce mineral resources with those of geologically more abundant mineral resources. The results show that in the period 1900–2013 the price mechanism did not result in high prices that provide advance warning of exhaustion of minerals. We therefore argue that if conservation is left to market forces, it is not certain that geologically scarce minerals will be timely, automatically, and sufficiently conserved for future generations. We recommend preparing international policy measures targeted at a price increase of the scarcest mineral resources, in order to accelerate substitution and recycling of these materials and help save the geologically scarcest mineral resources for future generations.
Highlights
Achieving sustainable development is a central goal of the United Nations
The question addressed in this paper is whether the price mechanism of the free market system can be expected to slow down the extraction of geologically scarce minerals automatically and timely, in order to keep sufficient resources available for future generations
By comparing the real price development of commodities of varying geological scarcity over a long period of time, we investigated whether the price trends of mineral resources are related to geological scarcity
Summary
Achieving sustainable development is a central goal of the United Nations. It is the main issue in a number of agreements, conventions, and declarations, such as the Stockholm Convention (1972), the Rio Declaration (Agenda 21, 1992), the Rio þ20 Declaration (The Future We Want, 2012), and the UN Report on the implementation of Agenda 21 (United Nations, 2014). A strict application of the strong sustainability concept would mean, that no generation (neither current, nor future) may extract any quantity of a mineral resource, because extraction always leads to exhaustion This is neither practical nor necessary, because by sufficiently sparing on the geologically scarcest resources, humankind can buy time to work on problem solving in the future. The key question of this paper is whether the price mechanism of the free market system will timely and automatically lead to sufficient conservation of geologically scarce mineral resources for future generations. To answer this question, we will first discuss the concept of geological scarcity.
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