Reducing our dependence on hydrocarbons is not necessarily a vector for peace. New decarbonized technologies require critical metals, such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, copper… in turn catalysts of conflicts, explains Emmanuel Hache, scientific assistant of the Economy and Monitoring department at IFP Energies nouvelles and research director at IRIS. The specialist, co-author of the book Metals, The new black gold (Editions du Rocher, 2023) does not exclude that in the event of Donald Trump’s return to the White House in 2025, a new relationship will be established with China, a major producer of these highly strategic raw materials. To the detriment of Europe.
L’Express: The energy transition has long been seen as a way to stop conflicts related to hydrocarbons. A false idea?
Emmanuel Hache: We have indeed lived with this form of naivety, that renewables and low-carbon technologies were factors of peace. We have simply forgotten the materiality of the world: behind each low-carbon technology, there are materials, raw materials and in particular metals. We have entered an era of competition for the transition, and we are less and less in cooperation. These metals, which were an entry point to decarbonize the system, are also the entry point for commercial conflicts and geopolitical rivalries. Thinking of the arrival of renewables as a vector of peace is not in itself completely wrong, because the more we decarbonize economies, the more we will reduce hydrocarbon imports and therefore our dependencies. But we must not forget that low-carbon technologies are equipment composed of matter, and that the increase in demand for minerals exacerbates the rivalries linked to their obtaining. We potentially have here a catalyst for future conflicts.
Will the energy transition revive a bipolar world?
I am not a big fan of the notion of a “bipolar world”. I prefer to talk about a “world of blocs” or a “climate cold war”, which does not necessarily imply bipolarity: current geopolitical developments show that we are witnessing a form of “multi-alignment”. These blocs are difficult to position. Among them are countries like India, Indonesia; a bloc has formed around the United States; another around China. But there are a number of non-aligned or multi-aligned countries that oscillate between these different blocs.
Not forgetting a scenario that is not discussed, but which can in my opinion be taken into account: that of cooperation between China and the United States. When we talk about raw materials, China’s dependencies are the United States’ strong points, and vice versa. Beijing has significant energy and food needs, and the United States absolutely needs metals. Cooperation between the two powers remains the least likely scenario, but the return of Donald Trump to the White House could well increase the chances, and Europe could then be the big loser in the story. Indeed, Trump has already shown his hostility to NATO and the new dependence of the European Union on American LNG offers him many cards in the global game: he will want to quickly rebalance trade with Europe and will arbitrate based on American interests alone. And if China offers an alternative to “pay” Europe, he will use it. Let’s not forget that Trump is a fan of transactional diplomacy.
China recognized the geopolitical importance of critical materials very early on, well before the United States. Why?
The initial awakening came from Deng Xiaoping and his wave of industrialization starting in the 1980s. He is credited with saying: “Saudi Arabia has the oil, China has the rare earths.” This pretty much captures the general thinking. Deng Xiaoping had spent part of his studies in France, where he had realized the importance of metallurgy and industrial realities at the very moment that France was breaking away from it.
Chinese development was largely based on industry, and focused on everything the West did not want. The awareness of this came from the elites, who were largely composed of engineers. They saw that Western countries were massively separating themselves from their metallurgical branches. But there is no reason why metallurgy should decline in a developing world: we always need metals, steel, material structure. China has remained very far from this ideology that ran through the 1990s and which consisted of living in a world without factories and freeing ourselves from matter.
During his term, Donald Trump took up the issue of critical materials. Why?
When he came to power, Trump took two important steps from the start: he withdrew from the Paris Agreement, and he declared a national emergency on the issue of critical materials. His intention was not to create dependency, particularly with regard to China. His approach is above all that of a sovereignist. Based on this, everything that comes from China is considered “critical” by the United States.
While this strategy is unprecedented, the initial observation is very old. The Paley Report, published in 1951, already addressed questions relating to resources, describing them as vital to American civilization. Trump has simply brought back this way of conceiving matter in the American mind by adding a geopolitical aspect with Chinese competition.
Joe Biden, for his part, passed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which is the most thought-out, successful, and best-funded plan for reindustrialization and strengthening the metallurgical sector. But it is a fundamentally protectionist plan. The components of the IRA, as well as the low cost of energy, encourage reindustrialization and allay concerns about the Chinese threat. Biden has unraveled many of Trump’s measures, but on the industrial front, he has played the continuity card.
What is Europe missing to get back into the race for critical metals?
In Europe, the Critical Raw Materials Act lists raw materials that are crucial for strategic technologies. This decree was thought up, published and adopted in record time. This shows a strong political will to secure our access to resources. There is a complementarity between this list and the Net Zero Industry Act, which sets up reindustrialization actions. Each time a material is declared critical, it has an industrial plan that follows.
Once the legal framework is in place, we still need to find the funding to be able to meet these strong ambitions. In my opinion, we also lack European metals champions. Europe only hosts 2% of global investments in mining. Our mining culture has disappeared for about thirty years. The biggest challenge is not financial, but rather attractiveness. To attract investment, we need a much more attractive tax framework. We also need to train talent: today, most students from the Mines department are turning to more attractive sectors of activity such as finance. We need to restore a positive image of mining, which is not a given.
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