G7 Policy on Critical Minerals – 2023.

The G7 issued a Clean Energy Economic Action Plan dated 20 May 2023 that included reference to critical minerals policies that includes:

·???????Supporting local value creation in critical minerals supply chains, including processing and refining, and trading systems.

·???????Continue collaboration through the Minerals Security Partnership to strengthen supply chains for critical minerals, promote responsible and sustainable investment in extraction and processing, and recycling and drive high Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) standards.

·???????To promote the private sector’s adoption of due diligence requirements in line with the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and the OECD’s Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains of Minerals from Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas to increase responsible business conduct.

·???????Will work to develop technical international standards for critical minerals markets through the International Organization for Standardization.

·???????Commit to facilitating trade and investment in goods and services, including critical minerals that promote the reduction of greenhouse gases to help meet our climate objectives.

Note further;

1)????The Group of Seven (G7) is an intergovernmental political forum consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States; additionally, the European Union (EU) is a "non-enumerated member." Its members make up the world's largest IMF advanced economies. As of 2020, G7 members account for over half of global net wealth (at over $200 trillion), 30 to 43 percent of global gross domestic product, and 10 percent of the world's population (770 million people).

2)????Minerals Security Partnership (MSP) includes Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union. Their goal is to ensure that critical minerals are being “produced, processed, and recycled in a manner that supports the ability of countries to realise the full economic development benefit of their geological endowments." Specifically, the MSP focuses on critical minerals that are inputs for electric vehicles and advanced batteries.

3)????The 2023 edition of the OECD Forum on Responsible Mineral Supply Chains will take place on 24-28 April 2023 at the OECD Headquarters in Paris. The sessions will include the topics of artisan and small-scale mining, new conflict risks, corruption and environmental risks in mineral supply chains, drivers of responsible exploration, extraction and trade, responsible gold industries, and systemic issues like regulatory developments, shortcomings in minerals due diligence and taking responsible finance to scale.

4)????The International Energy Agency (IEA) will host the first ever international summit on critical minerals and their role in clean energy transitions on 28 September 2023 in Paris. This summit will focus on measures to promote the secure, sustainable and responsible supply of raw materials that have a central role in clean energy transitions around the world. This summit is in response to the G7 Climate, Energy and Environment Ministers to provide support on critical minerals. The IEA defines Critical minerals as those non-fuel minerals that are essential for the economic and national security of a country, but are vulnerable to supply chain disruption. These include lithium, cobalt, graphite, copper, rare earth elements, and platinum group metals, amongst others. These minerals are essential for clean energy technologies such as wind turbines, solar PV panels, storage batteries and electric vehicles. Therefore, their availability plays an important role in the sustainable energy transition.

Critical Minerals a two-faced coin for geologists.

For years the public image of exploration, mining and metallurgy has been in decline. This has now been reversed with the public awareness that critical minerals show a positive path to a future greener world. On the other side of the coin is that official media refer to “minerals” wherein they actually talk about “elements” sourced from such minerals.

The classic text reference “Dana’s Textbook of Minerology” defines a mineral as; A mineral is a body produced by the processes of inorganic nature, having usually a definite chemical composition and, if formed under favorable conditions, a certain characteristic atomic structure which is expressed in its crystalline form and other physical properties. For example, the critical mineral is not tin, but cassiterite, stannite etc.?

Perhaps the geological, mining, and metallurgists professionals have some work to come up with terminology for governments and NGOs to clarify this distinction between minerals and elements. Perhaps something along the lines of “critical minerals are those from which viable extraction of critical elements can be undertaken”?