Climate policy stringency and trade in energy transition minerals: An analysis of response patterns

Resources Policy. 2024. Vol. 96. Article 105236.

Fikru M., Kilinc-Ata N., Belaid F.

Climate policies directly affect cleaner energy technology markets, affecting price signals for greener electricity production. In turn, the manufacturing of energy technologies relies heavily on mineral inputs, posing challenges in securing mineral ores and concentrates either from local mines or overseas. This paper contributes to the mineral-energy literature by examining the impact of climate change policies on the net import demand for five essential minerals used in cleaner energy technologies: copper, aluminium, nickel, cobalt, and manganese. We examined country-level panel data from 33 countries from 1992 to 2015 to understand patterns in net imports relative to renewable generation. This metric allows the examination of technological improvements that contribute to more efficient use of imported mineral inputs in renewable energy systems. Results suggest that while both net import volumes and renewable generation have increased over time, net imports per renewable generation have continuously declined on average, suggesting that nations may have efficiently utilized imported resources to generate more than proportionate increases in cleaner energy. Moreover, results from a cross-sectional autoregressive distributed lag model show that the stringency of environmental policies significantly affects net mineral imports per renewable generation, with marked variations across minerals and countries. Notably, with stricter policies, import reliance on cobalt and aluminium per renewable energy increases in the short run and eventually declines in the long run. Import reliance for copper declines per unit of renewable energy in the short run but increases in the long run. These findings emphasize the need for tailored policies to navigate mineral trade dynamics effectively. The research contributes valuable insights to the ongoing discussions surrounding sustainable energy transitions and global mineral trade patterns.

Keywords: renewable energy, Environmental policies, critical minerals, Photovoltaics