Net zero climate remediations and potential terminal depletion of global critical metal resources: A synoptic geological perspective

Abstract

• Climate change accords led to widespread acceptance of Net Zero by 2060 targets. • Critical metals depletion making low carbon technology production impossible. • Climate change in geological perspective is slow incremental not catastrophic. • A reset in Net Zero ambitions should be made for the future. Over the past two decades, concerns about anthropogenic CO 2 emissions have led to computer-based climate models of the consequences, first on global warming and then on more general climate change. The more extremes of these models have been used to engender concerns about climate events that could be catastrophic for global populations even though natural climate change has always been incremental with only periodic large volcanic eruptions producing short-term catastrophic changes due to massive additions of aerosols to the atmosphere. Climate change accords have led to widespread acceptance of Net Zero by 2060 targets. However, indicative modelling of the nexus between clean energy and the critical metals required for low carbon solar and wind technologies and electric vehicles and their chargers indicates that many metals, particularly Co, Ni, Cu, Se, Ag, Cd, In, Te, and Pt, may be severely to terminally depleted by 2060, making further low carbon technology production impossible. Mineral exploration and currently unmined deposits with high risk factors are only likely to be able to replace these non-renewable metals at lower grades in more inaccessible or deeper mines, leading to even further increases in conventional energy for mining and metallurgy and consequent cost of the low carbon technology revolution. There is no current indication that recycling can replace the critical metal stocks. The heterogeneous global distribution of both mineral deposits containing the critical metals and production points could become a geopolitical issue if global security declines. These factors combined with the slow incremental, rather than catastrophic, changes related to climate change, suggest that a reset in Net Zero ambitions should be made to consider a more multicomponent plan for the future that involves a balanced portfolio of least polluting energy sources that do not cause serious depletion of affordable metal resources for the future. Graphical Abstract. .