Prof Louise Heathwaite CBE became the executive chair of the National Environment Research Council (NERC), the UK’s main agency for funding natural science research, in March 2024.
She was the chair of the Science Advisory Council of the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and has previously served as chief scientific adviser to the Scottish Government for Rural Affairs, Food and Environment. She is a leading hydrochemist.
- On realising human’s environmental impact: “When the ozone hole was being discussed. So I knew from a long, long time ago that we were doing damage.”
- On funding climate research: “You can’t look at climate research just as climate research. It’s a nexus. It’s thinking about climate change, the implications for biodiversity loss and other changes like pollution.”
- On funding solar geoengineering: “A few years ago, I think this council and many others would not have gone into solar geoengineering in any sense. We’re getting closer and closer to 2050. That starts you looking for more extreme routes.”
- On Brexit’s impact on UK research: “I think that led to some breakage of communication and links with people working in Europe particularly.”
- On reaching net-zero in the farming sector: “So far, that vision hasn’t been much beyond ‘we’re going to plant trees everywhere, and cows are bad’.”
- On transforming land-use in the UK: “We do need it, but it’s hard to see who’s going to really have the oversight.”
- On lack of public attention on biodiversity loss compared to climate change: “I think pollution and biodiversity loss are lagging behind as it’s much more complex to understand that system.”
Carbon Brief: You have a long standing career as a hydrologist and a pollution expert, when did you first become aware that humans were having a large impact on the natural world through pollution and agriculture?
Prof Louise Heathwaite: Before I went to university – well before I went to university. At school I studied maths, economics and geography and put it together in that sort of sense. Then I went on to do an environmental science degree at the University of East Anglia. At that point, there were only two places you could do environmental science, UEA or Lancaster. Lancaster was far too close to home for me [Heathwaite is from Leeds]. UEA were doing some really cutting edge science. That’s when the ozone hole was just being discussed. So I knew from a long, long time ago that we were doing damage. So it’s been with me all that time. And that progression with working with the Natural Environment Research Council started at that point. I went from doing a degree to doing a PhD at Bristol and that was funded by NERC.
CB: What was your PhD in?
LH: I was looking at peatlands, wetland hydrology and hydrochemistry. I was looking at the impact of [peatland] drainage on water quality. The place I was working was the first SSSI [site of special scientific interest] ever declared in the country. It was a place called West Sedgemoor in the Somerset Levels. It was a real interesting challenge there, looking at the difference between what the [wildlife charity] RSPB wanted to do to protect that site versus the farming community, who wanted to actually farm that site, and how you get some sort of shared understanding. It was really fascinating. And underneath that there were some real chemistry questions to answer as to why the river was getting polluted and what the issues were. And it wasn’t anything to do with the farming community at all. It was to do with the geology of the site. Really interesting.
CB: This year, you became the executive chair of NERC. What are the key areas of climate research that NERC is looking to fund?
My perspective is you can’t look at climate research just as climate research. I think there are three parts to this, it’s a nexus. It’s thinking about climate change, the implications for biodiversity loss and other changes like pollution. So I always argue you’ve got to think of it through that three-way nexus. The direction of travel I’m trying to take NERC through in terms of our forward look is developing thinking that I’m starting to call “beyond carbon”. So when you talk to communities like the financial industry, what they’re looking for when they want to understand biodiversity loss is another metric, like carbon, that can tell them how to deal with the problems. [We need to] get to the realisation that, for biodiversity loss, there is no single metric. And a lot of what the climate change drivers are doing are causing feedback loops, which damage biodiversity, create other sorts of challenges, and how do we understand that? So there’s a whole load of work to do in that sort of space. So that’s one bit where climate change is a real driver. The other bit is around national security and health. Your floods, your droughts, risk for wildfires, risk for temperature and heat and what that does to people. That’s another area.
Then the third area you might think will be quite unusual for NERC, which is starting to look at what we’re calling “responsible innovation”. So NERC has just got a call out around solar radiation management. Now, a few years ago, I think this council and many others would not have gone into solar geoengineering in any sense. But the position we’re getting into now is we’re getting closer and closer to 2030 and to 2050 and trying to get to things like net-zero. That starts you looking for more extreme routes. I think it’s important that a research council tries to understand what the implications are of anybody following those extreme routes. I need to be clear, we’re not doing out-of-door experiments, it’s more around modelling and maybe some laboratory work to try and understand that. But if we don’t understand solar radiation management, or we don’t understand the sort of interventions you might do in the oceans, then we’re not going to be able to advise on the implications. And, with the Natural Environment Research Council, we’ve got everything at our fingertips, really, because we do deep ocean to upper atmosphere. We do pole to pole. We do air, land, water. And that captures the global capacity. And so actually addressing those climate change challenges sits right in our remit, at a very difficult time, really.
CB: How has NERC research funding been impacted by Brexit? Does NERC have all the resources it needs at the moment?
Brexit or everything else after Brexit? We’ve had Brexit, then we have Covid, and then we had Ukraine and inflation and all of those things. From a Brexit context, and this is a personal view, I think that led to some breakage of communication and links with people working in Europe particularly. Now we’re part of Horizon again [the EU’s €96bn research programme], I can see that coming back, which is absolutely fantastic, it’s really important. I think also within NERC, all of those issues that I just mentioned have also led us to perhaps start looking [at] more UK-wide, rather than global and international science. That’s something I want to change. That international science is absolutely critical, particularly as we’ve got many of our scientists working with the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] and IPBES [Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services]. And we’ve got the new UN Environment Programme around pollution and waste. So those three areas I mentioned before, we’ve now got intergovernmental panels which are actually looking at them. I think of our opportunity as to how we bring them together and think about it as a system.
CB: You recently stood down as the chair of the Science Advisory Council for Defra. What did it entail, how often were you briefing ministers and what kind of information were you sharing with them?
LH: So this was the highest level advisory committee within Defra, but part of our role was very particularly to help support and advise the chief scientific adviser [CSA], so that they were getting the best sort of advice. So the way that that worked was to basically take challenges from across Defra and [answer questions such as] are we doing this right? What’s your advice? How could we do this sort of thing? And get that [answered] by a wide range of people on the committee. [This was] to actually ensure two things: that the right sort of questions were being asked of the science and the right sort of evidence was being gathered, and that evidence was being used effectively. So the route was really to make sure that the CSA had a group of “critical friends”, in a sense, but also was [well] informed. Briefing ministers was the CSA’s job. Acting as a science advisory committee [and] actually making sure that the CSA and others in Defra were actually being coherent in their messages around the science – it was fascinating. But I’d been on Defra’s Science Advisory Council before, so that was really exciting. I’ve been a chief scientific adviser in the Scottish Government for Rural Affairs, food and environment before, so that fitted really well with that role. But it’s an important entity providing that sort of independent advice, that critical friend bit, is always important.
CB: Farming and land use have been a weak spot in UK climate plans, and now agriculture is a bigger emitter than power plants, for example. What do you think is needed to help the farming sector get to net-zero?
LH: I guess let’s start with the end point, getting to net-zero by 2050. It’s going to be a challenge to ever get to [actual] zero [emissions]. And what does getting to the “net” in net-zero mean? We need to have that national security of still being able to turn the lights on. I think that’s important. By setting targets and target dates, this is the bit I mentioned about geoengineering, it tends to get more and more desperate measures because you’ve got a target. I tend to think of it more as a transition. How do we transition, both in terms of behaviours, but also in terms of the science and the interventions we can put in to actually get to those sorts of places? So that seems to me to be really, really important and how we actually capture that moving forward is critical.
CB: So how do we transition the farming sector?
LH: That is always going to be a challenge because you’ve got two things. One, I think we need to look at farming and the farming community and landowners as being part of the solution, not the problem. Think of them as custodians of land and of the environment. Therefore, you start having a different conversation, which isn’t, “this is wrong, having cows and sheep is wrong”. But: “How do we actually get to a better place where we can have a shared understanding of what the environment’s about? What alternative livelihoods do people have?” Even down to evaluating whether we pay the right sort of amount for the meat we want to eat. So if people were prepared to pay more but eat less of it, that might actually change the economics of how farming might work. But none of that works if you go to the supermarket and buy something that’s been shipped in from some other country, either. So I think it’s a conversation, a shared conversation, about what the vision is for the future. And I think, so far, that vision hasn’t been much beyond “we’re going to plant trees everywhere, and cows are bad”. You’ve got to turn it into “we’ve got a fabulous landscape, we’ve got a very dense population, we want to do all these other things with our land, how can we actually have a conversation to get us to the right place?” And that’s not going to be easy, but what I’m seeing is now much more cross-government thinking about how to get there.
If you actually mapped out all the policies that we want to achieve from our land, we haven’t got enough area, nowhere near enough area, to actually achieve them. So we’ve got to think about the nature of the interventions and what we achieve. It’s a really exciting space. From my perspective, coming from where I came from as a scientist, understanding how those changes might impact on other parts of the system. So like the freshwater environment, which is always the bucket in which all the problems end, and then we pass that on to the marine environment, and we pass it up to the atmospheric environment, how can we actually get a more sustainable solution there? So it’s an opportunity, But if you turn it into a problem, all you do is back people into a corner.
CB: The new Labour government has come in, and it has a lot on its in-tray when it comes to food, land in nature, including a land-use framework and its international nature pledge under the UN biodiversity convention. Which of these documents would you like to see being published soon, and what sort of details do you think will be critical for those documents?
LH: Big question, massive question. I’ll probably answer this a bit tangentially because it’s really a matter of how you can achieve what you can achieve. This government has got a very strong focus on delivery for people quickly. And there are some quite exciting and quite interesting projects around clean energy by 2030, as an example. So what does that mean for things like land use that we’ve just been talking about, biodiversity and all of those things? Is it a really good pledge, but the ones around the land-use strategy are really, really challenging. Because, say, clean energy for 2030, if we can make that work, we’ll need to make sure we get the transition mechanisms in place to move energy around from generation points to to where it actually needs to be delivered. If we can do that for energy, we can probably do that for land. So we do need it, but it’s hard to see who’s going to really have the oversight. And everybody wants a piece of this pie. But all the things that this new government is wanting can’t be achieved without some joined-up thinking. So I put that quite high.
I also think making clear our commitment to work in the international space [is important]. My council, the National Environmental Research Council, is the one that thinks at long timescales, large scales, global. So actually having that international presence and keeping our science cutting edge and curiosity driven is just so important in that sort of space. So I’d be articulating that through the new government that the research and innovation part is really, really critical, because that’s where you’ve actually got that curiosity driving new thinking, but you’ve also got the innovation which takes that new thinking and now converts it into something useful. Some of it’s shovel-ready now, but actually, some of it’s going to take time to actually get us there.
CB: So, finally, we touched on this before, but the issues of pollution and biodiversity loss tend to receive less attention at a national and international level than climate change. Why do you think that is and how can that be addressed?
LH: I think it’s only that climate change has been thought of as being doable – because it’s carbon, and we’ve got that single metric – and therefore business and industry can buy into that and they can think about how to build it into their business models. The reason I think pollution and biodiversity loss are lagging behind is it’s much more complex to understand that system and we’re only getting together now with the science to actually help us do that and develop those metrics. But there is no single metric to say we can understand biodiversity loss. It’s going to take some more systematic thinking. And one of the really good things I think about where NERC is now placed within UKRI [UK Research and Innovation, a government department] is that we’ve got that cross-research council thinking, which allows you to pull from all the various disciplines to get a solution.
The post The Carbon Brief Interview: Prof Louise Heathwaite appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Climate Change
The UN climate process was built for negotiation – now it must support implementation
By Paul Watkinson, Stefan Ruchti-Crowley, Anju Sharma, Ovais Sarmad and Benito Müller.
In the corridors of the World Conference Centre in Bonn, where the June Climate Meetings (SB64) will conclude on Thursday, the need for change is palpable.
Delegates are grappling once again with overcrowded agendas, growing demands on limited negotiating time, external geopolitical pressures that reverberate internally to test the limits of a consensus-based process, and concerns over its future financial sustainability.
Bonn Bulletin: Finance row threatens to scupper work on adaptation goal
There is growing frustration with a process that consumes vast amounts of time to produce outcomes that are often too incremental to match the accelerating reality of the climate crisis.
The climate regime has delivered. But it is in danger of not delivering enough.
More effective multilateralism
There is no denying the successes of the UN climate process. Over three decades, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement established a universal framework for climate action, created transparency and accountability mechanisms, and sent powerful signals to governments, businesses and investors.
Thanks in large part to this framework, the world is no longer on a trajectory of more than 4°C of warming, clean technology costs have fallen dramatically, and participation in the global climate effort remains nearly universal.
Yet, global temperatures continue to break records. Climate impacts are intensifying across every region. The world remains far off track to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. As warming approaches – and may exceed – 1.5°C, every additional fraction of a degree brings greater losses of lives, livelihoods and ecosystems, with the greatest burdens falling on the most vulnerable countries and communities.
-
Science ‘under attack’ from fossil fuel interests at UN climate talks
A coalition of some rich nations and the world’s most vulnerable have vowed to protect climate science in UN negotiations -
UN’s first Paris Agreement carbon credits face human rights and climate concerns
Civil society groups allege the cookstove project in Myanmar exaggerated its climate impact while maintaining ties with military junta
We remain convinced that the answer to the climate crisis is not less multilateralism, but more effective multilateralism.
The hard truth is that the UNFCCC remains largely organised around the logic of treaty-making, while the central challenge of climate action has shifted to implementation. A process designed to negotiate agreements and deliver decision text as the outcome is now required to support implementation on the ground—and it is struggling.
There is a structural mismatch between what the climate process was designed to do, and what it needs to do now.
Consultations on reforms
Discussions on the urgency of reform are widespread and no longer confined to the margins. Formally, the Arrangements for Intergovernmental Meetings (AIM) process is exploring ways of improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the process.
The UNFCCC Executive Secretary has also convened a High-Level Informal Consultative Roundtable for strategic reflection on how to strengthen the complementarity between the intergovernmental process and action in the real economy.
Defending multilateralism today requires adapting it.
The good news is that meaningful reform does not require reopening treaties, renegotiating the Paris Agreement, or indeed even resolving long-standing differences on the Rules of Procedure to change the consensus rule. Stefan Ruchti-Crowley and Paul Watkinson’s recent paper for ecbi (European Capacity Building Initiative), Quo Vadis COP? Reforming UNFCCC Sessions to Improve Negotiations and Support Implementation, outlines a practical toolbox of four reforms that can be pursued within the existing institutional framework.
First, the process must improve its agendas.
The formal process is burdened by crowded agendas and overlapping workstreams. Consolidating agenda items under broader thematic pillars (such as mitigation, adaptation, finance and transparency); developing good practices for agenda adoption; removing legacy “ghost” items; and concluding outstanding business on the Kyoto Protocol will create more space for substantive discussions and implementation.
Second, the process must organise its work more strategically.
The climate process currently attempts to address nearly every issue at every session. A more strategic approach would use thematic multi-year programmes of work; better align review cycles and timelines; improve coherence across the many bodies and processes that have accumulated over time, often to the extent that even insiders have lost oversight; and also make better use of inter-sessional and pre-sessional meetings.
Third, the process must focus more deliberately on implementation.
Critically, not every challenge requires a negotiated outcome. Negotiations should focus on issues that genuinely require collective decision-making. Other discussions should prioritise learning, cooperation and practical problem-solving.
Existing formats such as Talanoa Dialogues, roundtables and other facilitative approaches should be expanded. Likewise, the Enhanced Transparency Framework should become a stronger mechanism for mutual learning and accountability rather than a largely procedural reporting and “box-ticking” exercise.
Fourth, the process must make structural changes and broaden participation.
National delegations should include a broader range of practitioners and policymakers, including a Head of Implementation. The process should strengthen engagement with sectoral ministers, investors, technology providers, scientists, local authorities and non-Party stakeholders.
Stronger links are necessary between science policy and implementation, and with international institutions that shape the enabling conditions for climate action, particularly finance and development. Platforms to address systemic barriers along with AI-enabled learning by doing will equally support strengthened action.
Delivering commitments with limited resources
The case for reform is becoming even stronger as financial pressures intensify.
Improving efficiency is not simply desirable; it has become unavoidable. The UNFCCC faces growing budgetary constraints arising from delayed contributions, uncertainty surrounding major donors, and broader reductions across the UN system.
A process that is better organised, more implementation-focused and less encumbered by procedural overload will be far better equipped to navigate a future of tighter resources.
Leadership will be crucial.
Panama environment minister backs calls for reform of UN climate process
COP presidencies have an important role to play, as do the Chairs of the Subsidiary Bodies. The UNFCCC Executive Secretary and Secretariat must take a bold approach to work in coordination with the COP Bureau to implement urgent changes.
Careful diplomacy will, of course, be essential. Parties must be reassured that reform is intended to strengthen the effectiveness of the regime, not weaken its governance. The objective is not to replace mandates, but to ensure that mandates can be fulfilled more effectively. It is to ensure that negotiation is used where negotiation is needed, while other forms of cooperation are used where they can deliver better results.
The UNFCCC remains the cornerstone of international climate cooperation. No other forum combines its legitimacy, universality and legal authority. But the multilateral climate process must evolve from a system primarily designed to negotiate commitments into one that is equally capable of supporting their delivery.
The post The UN climate process was built for negotiation – now it must support implementation appeared first on Climate Home News.
The UN climate process was built for negotiation – now it must support implementation
On quiet streets across the Californian city of Monterey Park, green-and-white “YES on Measure NDC” signs stood on front-yard lawns as volunteers walked door-to-door, drumming up support among residents to vote in favor of a ban on new data centers in their area.
They clarified the ballot wording in English, Spanish and Chinese, while distributing multilingual flyers warning about the rise in electricity demand, industrial infrastructure and environmental impacts associated with AI-related data center development.
Less than a month later, on June 2, Monterey Park voters overwhelmingly approved the ban in the San Gabriel Valley east of Los Angeles, with 86.4% voting in favor and 13.6% opposed, according to county election results.
Social opposition to data centers is on the rise, especially in the US, as artificial intelligence (AI) and the technology hubs needed to support it stoke competition for electricity, water and land in communities where they are based. Industry advocates say data centers bring economic benefits and do not always result in higher power prices for households.
The result in Monterey Park made it the first city in the United States to enact a citywide prohibition on data centers through a voter-approved ballot measure.
“This week our city has been celebrating the landslide results from Measure NDC,” Monterey Park Mayor Elizabeth Yang said in a phone interview.
On social media, Yang described the city’s response as the result of sustained resident organizing and civic engagement. “We want to fulfill our duty of listening to residents,” Yang told Climate Home News.
A community campaign takes shape
The vote came after months of public testimony, neighborhood outreach and organizing surrounding a proposed data center project on Saturn Street in Monterey Park. Here, developers planned to replace an existing commercial office building with a nearly 50-megawatt data center intended to serve growing demand for AI computing.
Supporters of Measure NDC (Measure No Data Centers) argued that keeping this, and other such centers, out of their community would help protect air quality, drinking water resources, public health and local infrastructure.
According to CoStar News, a real estate information platform, the backers of the Saturn Street project – Digico Infrastructure REIT and HMC Capital’s StratCap – had already withdrawn their planning application on April 3 amid growing local opposition and regulatory uncertainty, including the city’s decision to place a data center ban before voters.
Subsequently, on April 20, the Monterey Park City Council adopted an ordinance prohibiting all data centers within the city limits.
Explainer: Will AI data centres make or break the energy transition?
Company representatives later said they would explore future “productive land uses … supported by the broader community”. Potential alternatives discussed publicly have included housing, although no formal proposal has been submitted.
Reuters reported in May that DigiCo Infrastructure, an Australian company, was exploring “monetisation options” for its two Los Angeles sites after rowing back on the Monterey Park proposal. DigiCo is also selling its Chicago data center for $750 million to pay down debt and fund the development of another site in Sydney.
DigiCo and HMC Capital did not respond to requests for comment for this article.
Potential local benefits of data centers
Industry lobby groups argue that data centers can provide economic benefits to host communities. According to the US-based Data Center Coalition, which represents major operators and developers, data centers generate tax revenue, support construction and technical jobs, and provide infrastructure needed for cloud computing, scientific research and AI development.
The industry has also challenged claims that data centers necessarily raise electricity costs for households. A recent report by energy consulting firm Energy + Environmental Economics (E3), commissioned by the coalition, found no historical evidence that data centers had driven up residential electricity rates under existing utility pricing structures. It argued that factors including inflation, grid modernization costs, natural gas price volatility and investments in wildfire resilience have played a bigger role in rising electricity bills.
According to E3, large users can, under certain regulatory frameworks, reduce prices for other customers by contributing more revenue to utilities than they cost to serve. In a previous analysis of Amazon data centers, the consultancy found that payments from the facilities exceeded the incremental costs incurred by utilities. The report also noted that regulators across the US have increasingly adopted specialized pricing structures as data center demand has expanded.
Hefty carbon, water and land footprints
The concerns raised in Monterey Park mirror debates over the environmental and infrastructure demands of AI being heard in many countries around the world, from Europe to North America and Asia.
This month, a UN report estimated that the data centers required for AI globally could consume 945 terawatt-hours of electricity annually by 2030 – roughly twice France’s 2025 power consumption.
This, it calculated, would have a carbon footprint needing some 6.7 billion trees grown over 10 years to offset, a water footprint equal to the annual domestic needs of 1.3 billion people in Sub-Saharan Africa, and a land footprint of more than 14,500 square kilometers, roughly twice the Jakarta metropolitan area.
In a 2026 report, Key Questions on Energy and AI, the International Energy Agency (IEA) found that electricity consumption from AI-focused data centers grew by approximately 50% in 2025 alone.
It warned that “social acceptability is also a growing issue, as communities push back against data center projects”, citing concerns about environmental sustainability, electricity affordability, infrastructure strain and democratic participation in land-use decisions.
Global data center electricity consumption by sensitivity case, 2020-2035
AI-focused facilities consume substantially more electricity than traditional data centers and often require extensive supporting infrastructure, including cooling systems, industrial electrical equipment, backup generators running on diesel and large-scale energy storage systems.
The IEA also noted that operators are increasingly exploring onsite natural gas generation and battery infrastructure to maintain electrical reliability as AI workloads intensify.
Local concern over industrial infrastructure
Samuel Brown Vazquez, an East San Gabriel Valley community organizer, said doubts about the proposed data center in Monterey Park were informed by broader debates over industrial development in the area.
Brown cited community opposition to proposals that could bring battery energy storage facilities – and potentially data centers – to the former Puente Hills Mall site in the City of Industry, where residents have raised concerns about pollution, fire risks, and the impacts of new industrial infrastructure on nearby residential neighborhoods and schools.
Many viewed the campaign as part of a larger conversation about how communities should respond to the rapid expansion of AI-related infrastructure across Southern California.
Power-hungry AI data centres seen driving demand for fossil fuels
According to nonprofit Data Center Watch, around $64 billion-worth of data center projects nationwide were delayed or blocked between May 2024 and March 2025 amid increasing local opposition.
Mayor Yang wants Monterey Park’s experience to encourage other communities to take a more active role in decisions about AI-related infrastructure. “We’re hoping other cities can follow similarly in banning data centers with proposed ballot measures,” she said, adding that whether such efforts succeed elsewhere will depend in part on how local officials respond to residents’ concerns.
The new UN report this month called on governments and companies to address AI’s environmental impacts proactively to ensure that the technology develops sustainably and its benefits are shared fairly.
Kaveh Madani, director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, who led the investigation team for the report, said AI “is a technological transformation that is improving the lives of billions of people around the world”. But, he added, it must be used “responsibly”.
“We have a narrow window to ensure that the backbone of the technological revolution of our era develops within planetary limits, and that the communities who provide the critical minerals for advancing AI and the ones that host its infrastructure and e-waste are also among those who benefit from it,” he said.
This story was developed, reported and produced under the Covering Climate Now (CCNow) Climate Journalism Student Mentorship, which connects USC student journalists with professional newsrooms in CCNow’s global network. Participants receive training, editorial mentorship, and the opportunity to report and publish original climate stories with partner outlets while being paid professional freelance rates.
The post The vote that stopped a data center: US communities query resource-hungry AI appeared first on Climate Home News.
The vote that stopped a data center: US communities query resource-hungry AI
Wealthy nations in the G7 have agreed to work more closely together to secure the minerals they need for the energy transition, AI and defence, and to diversify supply chains away from China, calling for more cooperation with “like-minded partners”.
But the agreement adopted at this week’s G7 leaders’ summit in France is vague on what co-operation with resource-rich developing countries could look like, with critics warning against creating a consumer club of powerful nations that excludes others from shaping standards and building green supply chains.
“The G7 communiqué reaffirms our suspicion that, for the G7, it is all about resource security, not just energy transition,” Claude Kabemba, executive director of Southern Africa Resource Watch, told Climate Home News.
-
After another battery startup bankruptcy, can Europe ever cut reliance on China?
Norway’s Morrow Batteries set out to challenge Chinese producers, but a cash crunch forced it to file for bankruptcy in a setback for European ambitions for clean energy sovereignty -
The scramble to stockpile critical minerals could drive up energy transition costs
Researchers warn that uncoordinated stockpiling could push up prices of minerals needed for clean energy technologies and delay their roll out -
Brazil jostles for rare earths share as US-China rivalry heats up
With the world’s second-largest reserves of rare earths after China, Brazil is catching the eye of US and Chinese companies – spurring the government’s critical minerals policy push
In a joint communique, the leaders of some of the world’s largest economies said they would step up coordination within the group and with partner countries to establish mineral processing and industrial capacity, support local value addition, promote innovation, develop standards, improve mineral traceability and share information on stockpiling systems.
They agreed to create a joint crisis-prevention mechanism with the support of the International Energy Agency to monitor mineral supply and demand disruptions, as well as establish harmonised platforms to provide information about the origin of minerals, starting with lithium and nickel.
The statement was endorsed by France, the UK, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, the US and the European Union at the end of the three-day summit in Evian, on the French shores of Lake Geneva. Australia, which isn’t a G7 member, also supported the declaration.
Breaking dependency on China
Western governments have been scrambling to secure the minerals they need to produce clean energy technologies such as batteries, electric vehicles and wind turbines, as well as hardware for artificial intelligence and military equipment while breaking their dependence on China.
China controls most supply chains for the strategic minerals they need, dominating the processing of 19 out of 20 critical minerals. The only exception is nickel, where Indonesia leads on supply and processing. Last year, Beijing spooked governments in Europe and the US when it imposed restrictions on rare earths exports, signalling its willingness to use its industrial clout to achieve its geopolitical objectives.
“We are all faced with risks of over-dependence and therefore vulnerability in our value chains,” French President Emmanuel Macron told a press conference, citing the “risks of divisions” among the group on how to respond to China’s control over strategic resources. “We have decided to move forward together,” he said.
Leaders agreed to aggregate demand to support the development of minerals projects and set targets for reducing dependencies on any single country outside the G7 by the end of the year.
A US proposal to regulate mineral prices and a French push to establish a permanent secretariat to track G7 initiatives on minerals failed to reach consensus among the group, according to Reuters.
Who has a seat at the table?
The declaration recognises the need for “mutually beneficial partnerships” and “plurilateral trade agreements” between G7 countries and “like-minded” and “trusted” partners to build diversified supply chains. Other parts of the text refer to “developing countries” and “emerging economies”.
A separate G7 statement on “mutually beneficial international partnerships” mentions the need for international cooperation along the whole of mineral supply chains.
“Who is going to be part of this conversation is unclear,” said Sébastien Treyer, executive director of France think-tank IDDRI, citing the ambiguity of the language and calling for developing countries to be part of the conversation.
Trade agreements that support green industrialisation can be “an entry point” for investment into value-addition projects in developing countries, said Treyer, but “how this is going to be operationalised is the key question”.
Moving beyond a ‘consumer club’
Resource-rich developing countries, particularly in Africa, have called for investment to build their industrial capacity to turn raw materials into high-value components for clean energy technologies such as batteries, capturing more domestic value and creating jobs.
But Kabemba, whose organisation is based in South Africa, said the declaration says “nothing about transferring industrial capacity to previously exploited regions such Africa”.
“Africa needs to react with its own coalition of the willing to put Africa’s interests first, otherwise, Africa risks being locked into a role as a raw material supplier in a new economic order it is not helping to build,” he said.
-
Kenya seeks regional coordination to build African mineral value chains
Kenyan President William Ruto is the latest African leader to announce an end to raw mineral exports as governments want to add more value to their resources -
Recycling could meet half of Europe’s critical mineral needs by 2050
A new report by an EU-funded research project says the bloc could harness its “urban mines” to reduce its dependence on China for energy transition minerals -
Ukraine can help Europe meet its battery material needs, experts say
The country could contribute to the European Union’s efforts to reduce its dependence on China for graphite but the war poses major challenges
Patrick Schröder, a resource governance expert at Chatham House, agreed that the G7 remains overwhelmingly focused on securing minerals supplies and reducing its dependence on China. “The benefits for developing country producers are only marginal in the G7 discussions,” he said.
Brazil, which is rich in rare earths, graphite and copper, was invited to attend the G7 meeting but did not endorse the minerals declaration – highlighting the need for future minerals framework to be more inclusive and responsive to producer-country concerns, said Schröder.
For Luc Tezenas, head of policy and advocacy at the Resource Justice Network, “the answer to rising geopolitical fragmentation cannot be to shrink multilateralism into a smaller club of ‘like-minded’ consumer economies”.
Instead, a non-binding minerals framework put forward by South Africa during its presidency of the G20 last year “shows more promise as a pathway forward because it attempts to link supply resilience with regional value chains and economic justice,” he said. The UK, which is presiding over the G20 next year, has the opportunity to build a more inclusive way forward, he added.
Circularity: another way to capture value
G7 nations also described the circular economy and the substitution of minerals in designing technologies as “key” to meet growing demand and secure sufficient supplies.
This, they said, includes increasing recycling capacity by setting targets, combatting the illegal transfer of used products and components, and promoting the recovery of minerals from secondary sources such as mining waste.
“We also recognise the opportunity for emerging market and developing economies to benefit from capturing added value through the recycling and secondary processing of their mining waste, as well as from circular economy innovations,” they said.
Schröder, of Chatham House, said the challenge now lies in demonstrating that intentions can be turned into creating a circular economy for minerals through investments, business support and a favourable policy environment.
The post Warning against ‘consumer club’ as G7 forms critical minerals alliance appeared first on Climate Home News.
Warning against ‘consumer club’ as G7 forms critical minerals alliance
-
Climate Change10 months ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Greenhouse Gases10 months ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Greenhouse Gases2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change2 years ago
Bill Discounting Climate Change in Florida’s Energy Policy Awaits DeSantis’ Approval
-
Renewable Energy8 months agoSending Progressive Philanthropist George Soros to Prison?
-
Carbon Footprint2 years agoUS SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rules Spur Renewed Interest in Carbon Credits
-
Greenhouse Gases11 months ago
嘉宾来稿：探究火山喷发如何影响气候预测