Low-carbon technologies are highly intensive in critical minerals for which extraction and transformation generate heavy socio-environmental negative externalities. Global trade flows of such materials and technologies are part of a singular macroeconomy, filled with geopolitical issues and national strategies.
This paper aims to draw on environmental justice and ecological macroeconomics theoretical frameworks in order to assess the global material allocation of critical minerals and low-carbon technologies, and question its equity and efficiency, in the lens of the ecologically unequal exchange theory.
Peripheral mining countries assume the heavy socio-environmental costs related to the extractive activities, while global trade flows enable an asymmetrical material allocation toward richer core countries. Two countries stand out : China, as the semi-periphery, and the US, as the challenged core.
The paper also discusses how shifting geopolitics, geo-economic fragmentation and national strategies could modify such patterns of ecologically unequal exchange.
This paper investigates the links between strategic minerals and foreign direct investment. I contribute to the literature on the FDI-resource curse by studying strategic minerals, the fundamental raw material of the energy transition.
The paper presents a precise overview of strategic minerals, their uses, and the geographical distribution of mineral production. This presentation highlights the novelties and peculiarities of strategic minerals which, due to their plurality, complexity and interdependencies, represent an energy commodity quite different from hydrocarbons, but of capital interest for the needs of the energy transition.
The econometric study in panel data at the macroeconomic level allows to find the results of the literature, namely a negative relationship between foreign direct investments and the presence of hydrocarbons, the FDI-resource curse. The core of my results contributes to the literature by showing a positive relationship between FDI and the presence of strategic minerals. Strategic minerals thus escape the FDI-resource curse. These results can be explained by the new and particular characteristics of strategic minerals which represent new stakes and do not obey the same rules as hydrocarbons. The paper therefore discusses the ambiguous economic consequences of this positive relationship between minerals and foreign investment.
Finally, the paper raises the consequences in terms of geopolitical strategies around strategic minerals issues, in terms of production, needs and energy sovereignty, and highlights China's global strategy and foresight.
Mot(s) clé(s)
strategic minerals, foreign direct investments, resource curse
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