¹ Meaning production, use, and end-use.

² On this, see (in Japanese) “Carmakers also aim for decarbonization by 2050,” Nikkei Shimbun, December 17, 2020.

³ One example is Japan NRG founder Yuriy Humber's article “There are good reasons to celebrate Japan's decarbonization pledge,” Nikkei Asia, December 12, 2020.

⁴ Other terms include “green energy metals,” “energy transition metals,” “battery metals,” and the like. These terms generally delineate subset groups of minerals and metals used in renewable energy, battery storage, and more specific applications.

⁵ The IEA announcement is summarized at “IEA to produce world's first comprehensive roadmap to net-zero emissions by 2050,” International Energy Agency, January 11, 2021.

⁶ The IEA press conference, titled “IEA key priorities and special projects for 2021.”

⁷ See Patrick Andersson, “Chinese assessments of ‘critical’ and ‘strategic’ raw materials: Concepts, categories, policies, and implications,” The Extractive Industries and Society, Volume 7/1, January 2020.

⁸ Australia's critical minerals list reflects its resource endowments as much as assessments of domestic needs and supply risk. See Jack Bedder and Jack Anderson, “Critical materials: Australia releases updated critical minerals list,” Roskill Industry News, November 6, 2020.

⁹ See “Final List of Critical Minerals 2018,” US Federal Register, May 18, 2018.

¹⁰ See p. 47 in (in Japanese) “Arguments relevant to deciding the new international resource strategy,” October 4, 2019.

¹¹ Japan's 2012 list is summarized on p. 23 of (in Japanese) “Outline of the Strategy for Resource Security,” Materials presented to cabinet member meeting on promotion of package-style infrastructure exports, June 27, 2012.

¹² See Jack Anderson, “Critical materials: EU releases updated critical raw materials list,” Roskill Industry News, September 4, 2020.

¹³ The EU list separates the rare earths into two categories of heavy and light elements. On the EU list and its evolution, see “Critical raw materials,” European Commission, nd.

¹⁴ A summary of the rare earth elements can be found at “Rare earth elements facts,” Natural Resources Canada, November 27, 2019.

¹⁵ The global data on rare earths are summarized in “Mineral Commodity Summaries, 2020” United States Geological Survey, January 31, 2020.

¹⁶ One good visual portrayal of copper's role – too detailed for reproduction in the present paper - is available on the title page of “Critical materials for strategic technologies and sectors in the EU - a foresight study, 2020,” European Commission.

¹⁷ For this reason, many American experts argued their own country's CRM list should include copper. See Veronica Tuazon, “‘Critical Minerals’ list snubs copper, sparks discussion of criticality,” Earth Magazine, December 20, 2018.

¹⁸ See Dieuwertje Schrivers et al., “A review of methods and data to determine raw material criticality,” Resources, Conservation and Recycling, Vol. 155, April 2020.

¹⁹ See Simon Flowers, “The energy transition will be built with metals: Getting to grips with supply of the Big 5,” Wood Mackenzie, October 30, 2020.

²⁰ In May of 2020, China's recovery from COVID-19 was already generating more emissions than pre-COVID. See Lauri Myllyvirta, “Analysis: China's CO2 emissions surged past pre-coronavirus levels in May,” Carbon Brief, June 29, 2020.

²¹ Renewable do of course dirty energy and a lot of metallurgical coal in their manufacture, but we do not address those issues here. On the coal data for 2020, see “Global coal production will grow this year despite covid-19,” Mining.com, April 9, 2020.

²² In this respect, an illuminating study of copper can be found in Branco W. Schipper, et al., “Estimating global copper demand until 2100 with regression and stock dynamics,” Resources, Conservation and Recycling, Vol.132, May 2018.

²³ See for example Bosch, Sybren et al (2018). “Metal Demand for Electric Vehicles” Metabolic.

²⁴ See “Securing Critical Materials for Critical Sectors: Policy options for the Netherlands and the European Union,” Hague Centre for Strategic Studies, December 10, 2020.

²⁵ On these data, see the summary of comments by Saad Rahim, Chief Economist and Global Head of Research, Trafigura, in “JEF U: Commodity Market Perspectives from Trafigura's Chief Economist,” Jefferies University, December 16, 2020.

²⁶ Rick Mills, “Copper, the most critical metal,” Mining.com, December 6, 2020.

²⁷ See Zachary Shahan, “Voodoo Economics & Lithium — Lithium Supply = 15% of 2023 Global EV Sales Target,” Clean Technica, September 7, 2020.

²⁸ See “Developing an global trade union battery supply chain strategy,” Industriall Global Union, November 20, 2020.

²⁹ On this scenario, see “Making Green Hydrogen a Cost-Competitive Climate Solution,” International Renewable Energy Agency, December 17, 2020.

³⁰ Ibid.

³¹ Rhiannon Hoyle, “Electric-Car Dreams Could Fall a Nickel Short,” The Wall Street Journal, September 29, 2019.

³² On overbuild scenarios, see Michael J. Coren, “It's time to start wasting solar energy,” Quartz, December 30, 2020

³³ See the data in “Does China Pose a Threat to Global Rare Earth Supply Chains?,” China Power. July 17, 2020.

³⁴ See p. 61 in (in Japanese) “A Green Growth Strategy with Carbon Neutrality by 2050,” Japan Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, December 25, 2020.

³⁵ See Jiashuo Li et al., “Critical Rare-Earth Elements Mismatch Global Wind-Power Ambitions,” One Earth 3, July 24, 2020.

³⁶ On these developments, see Leslie Liang, “Rare earths: China's new rare earth regulations strive for better industry management,” Roskill Industry News, January 18, 2021.

³⁷ See “Electricity mix in China, January-November 2020,” International Energy Agency, January 15, 2021.

³⁸ See Anna-Michelle Asimakopoulou, “The EU Taxonomy: a means to an end that risks being the end of many industries,” EURACTIV, January 20, 2021.

³⁹ A discussion of these ESG-related tax and other measures can be found in the “OECD Business and Finance Outlook 2020 : Sustainable and Resilient Finance,” OECD, 2020.

⁴⁰ For a detailed discussion and examples, see “Decarbonization of the LNG supply chain: challenges and the way forward,” Herbert, Smith, Freehills Legal Briefing, January 14, 2021.

⁴¹ See the quotations in Nicholas Bennett, “Revenge of the miners,” Business in Vancouver, January 18, 2021.

⁴² “Green hydrogen” implies a lot of CRM invest in wind and solar for power inputs plus to platinum and other materials for electrolizers. David Fickling, “Hydrogen is a trillion dollar bet on the future,” Bloomberg News, December 2, 2020.

⁴³ This concern was expressed on December 6, 2020 to the Financial Times by Suntory chief executive Niinami Takeshi. Niinami is one of two private-sector advisors on Japan's Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy, which is chaired by the prime minister and oversees integrated green-growth and industrial policy. See Niinami's comments in Robin Harding, et al., “Japan warns against allowing EU to set emission rules,” Financial Times, December 6, 2020.