Critical minerals strategy crucial for clean energy

South Africa's strategy for these minerals can support low-carbon economies, essential in tackling the climate crisis that worsens the vulnerability of people and the environment

- Busisipho Siyobi

Securing future supply of critical minerals is increasingly important in the world's quest for a lower carbon future. The global economy requires cleaner energy to reduce the adverse effects of our ecological and climate crisis.

This crisis is primarily driven by greenhouse gas emissions from human activities. These emissions are a function of burning fossil fuels and deforestation, which themselves have differentiated drivers.

The United Nations' Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is in its seventh assessment cycle, which delivers a comprehensive scientific report on climate change developments, its negative effects on societies and nature, irreversible risks associated with it and pathways for adapting to, and mitigating, it.

As it stands, the 2023 Synthesis Report of the IPCC Sixth Assessment reports: “Human activities, principally through emissions of greenhouse gases, have unequivocally caused global warming, with global surface temperature reaching 1.1°C above 1850-1900 in 2011-2020. Global greenhouse gas emissions have continued to increase over 2010-2019, with unequal historical and ongoing contributions arising from unsustainable energy use, land use and land-use change.”

This has caused changes to the Earth's climate system, including rising sea levels and intensifying weather conditions such as abrupt heatwaves and heavy rainfalls.

Bringing it home, the recent heavy rainfalls and subsequent flooding in the Eastern Cape signifies the distressing climate crisis, which has resulted in loss of lives and livelihoods. Mthatha Dam was reportedly at 99.8% capacity before upstream rainfall raised its level to 102%, causing a spillover. This highlights an infrastructural maintenance oversight at the local government level.