The decarbonisation of the global economy in response to the climate crisis and the fourth industrial revolution, featuring artificial intelligence (AI) and 5G networks (massively accelerated in ...response to the coronavirus pandemic), has triggered a race to secure uninterrupted access to critical raw minerals (CRMs) that are indispensable inputs for high-technology applications. Moreover, China's Belt and Road Initiative, which unites Eurasia and Africa and loops in South America into a seamless space of trade, infrastructure and digital connectivity, challenges the dominance of traditional industrial powers (the United States, the European Union and Japan) and requires critical minerals. Rare earths, lithium and cobalt - among the most critical of the CRMs - are found in high geographic concentration, creating hotspots of contention, especially in unstable parts of the world. As economic transformations accelerate, securing access to these materials will both impact and help shape geopolitics in the years to come.
The feeling of optimism that followed the COP 21 Paris Conference on Climate Change requires concrete action and steadfast commitment to a process that raises a number of crucial challenges: ...technological, political, social, and economic. As climate change worsens, new robust leadership is imperative.
The EU, US and China Tackling Climate Change examines why a close collaboration between the EU and China may result in the necessary impetus to solidify a vision and a roadmap for our common future in the Anthropocene. Kalantzakos introduces a novel perspective and narrative on climate action leadership through an analysis of international relations. She argues that a close EU-China collaboration, which does not carry the baggage of an imbedded competition for supremacy, may best help the global community move towards a low carbon future and navigate the new challenges of the Anthropocene. Overall, Kalantzakos demonstrates how Europe and China, already strategic partners, can exercise global leadership in an area of crucial common interest through their web of relations, substantial development aid, and the use of soft power tools throughout the developing world.
This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental politics, international relations, climate change and energy law and policy.
Introduction
Chapter 1: The US: Still reluctant and unreliable
Chapter 2: The European Union: A hopeful paradigm
Chapter 3: China: Lessons from an unsustainable growth model spur change
Chapter 4: US-China: Rivalry trumps partnership in the Anthropocene
Chapter 5: What makes EU-China collaboration a better fit for the Anthropocene
Chapter 6: Networks of states to spur hope and change
Sophia Kalantzakos is Global Distinguished Professor in Environmental Studies and Public Policy at New York University, USA/Abu Dhabi.
Within the last three years, the Gulf states (especially Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) have increasingly widened their sphere of influence in the Horn of Africa. While their relations ...with the Horn have had a long history, their renewed focus on the area is of a far deeper and wider nature than ever before. Today, their proactive role in this part of Africa extends beyond the cultivation and strengthening of commercial and investment ties to include important security aspects. What prompted their preoccupation with East Africa? Does Gulf involvement there mark an era of more active international policy? What kinds of possible constraints might the relationship with the Horn face in the future? Finally, does this power shift indicative a newfound desire of the Gulf countries to assert their "regional" power?
The race to rapidly decarbonise and digitalise the global economy by 2030 to avoid temperatures rising above 1.5C has been subsumed by geopolitics that remains anchored in realist power struggles, ...now revolving around Sino-American hyper-competition. The Russian invasion of Ukraine further undermined interdependence and prompted unprecedented levels of economic statecraft. Access to indispensable minerals for a net zero future has thus become more securitised. The European Union (EU) has pushed back against bipolar geopolitics by utilising its normative, economic and regulatory power and strong networks of global institutional relations to maintain a competitive but working relationship with the People's Republic of China (PRC). Such an approach may help broker broader global institutional collaboration to ensure that decarbonisation is for all, not just for the few.
The feeling of optimism that followed the COP 21 Paris Conference on Climate Change requires concrete action and steadfast commitment to a process that raises a number of crucial challenges: ...technological, political, social, and economic. As climate change worsens, new robust leadership is imperative. This title examines why a close collaboration between the EU and China may result in the necessary impetus to solidify a vision and a roadmap for our common future in the Anthropocene.
Significant amounts of feedstock metals will be required to build the infrastructure for the green energy transition. It is currently estimated, however, that the world may be facing an ...“infrastructure gap” that could prevent us from meeting United Nations Sustainable Development Goal targets. Prior investigations have focused on the extractive aspects of the mining industry to meet these targets and on looming bottlenecks and regional challenges in these upstream market segments. Scant attention has been paid to the downstream processing segments of the raw materials value chain, which also has a high degree of market concentration. Growing international tensions and geopolitical events have resulted in a shift toward “reshoring” and “near-shoring” of mining processing capabilities as regional powers attempt to make metal supply chains more secure. While increasing resilience, these shifts can also dilute the overall effectiveness of the global mining supply network and subsequently hamper the world’s ability to close the green energy infrastructure gap. We argue that broadening the remit of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) to include coordinating these mission-critical metal processing functions can mitigate these issues. The G20 is one potential forum for enabling an integrated mineral processing agreement under the auspices of IRENA.
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