Climate Wars: IEA Warns Governments To Stockpile Battery Metals

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China's dominance in green energy technologies are rare earth metal production is very concerning to the International Energy Agency (IEA), who posted a stark warning Wednesday advising western governments to stockpile critical battery metals such as cobalt and lithium.

IEA's warning comes as the next chapter in US-China tensions will be climate wars as energy transition investment ramps up with peak oil around 2030. Many Western countries and China have estimated net-zero carbon emission economies somewhere around 2040-2060. The need for western economies to become less reliant on China for rare earth metals, such as lithium and cobalt, is a necessity for independence from the East.

China has arguably been faster in adopting green technologies than western countries. Climate wars are much more than climate action and saving the planet - it's about the superpower race between the US and China and who can deliver climate change solutions and clean-tech.

IEA said leading industrial nations should begin to develop stockpiles of metals and minerals.

"Meeting our climate change goals will turbocharge demand for mineral resources," Fatih Birol, the head of the IEA, told Bloomberg by phone. "Voluntary strategic stockpiling can in some cases help countries weather short-term supply disruptions."

The problem with rare earth metals is that only a handful of countries control more than 75% of the global supply. So if disruptions, for any reason, were seen, they would immediately ripple throughout the world, seizing the production of green technologies.

Bloomberg data shows demand for rare earth metals will soar this decade as countries decarbonizing their economies.