Last month, I traveled to Dubai to attend COP28, or the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference. While the headline from COP was a landmark agreement to reduce fossil fuel production, I spent my time learning from stakeholders working on more granular issues. I’ve summarized some of those insights here.

Critical Minerals Roundtable

At a roundtable on critical mineral supply chains, representatives from the sustainability consultancy ERM presented results from a recent report. In their study of over 100 global projects, they found that nearly 60% experienced pre-production delays, resulting in a total timeline of up to 20 years from prospecting to extraction. 

Their most valuable finding relates to the causes of delays; permitting issues, technical challenges, and commercial issues lead the pack. 

Commercial issues (read: low mineral prices) have proved particularly gnarly for America’s only cobalt mine, Jervois Global’s Idaho Cobalt Operations. Cobalt prices, which were near $40 a pound in early 2022, fell below $15 a pound, making the mine unprofitable. This precipitous price fall led the mine to shut down, cutting off the domestic supply of an essential material that is used to produce lithium-ion batteries.

Geopolitics pose yet another barrier. At a follow-up event, Rohitesh Dhawan, CEO of the International Council on Mining and Metals, shared an anecdote about a mine in Serbia. After discovering lithium deposits in the Loznica region of Western Serbia, the Australian company Rio Tinto had planned a $2.4 billion project and was awaiting final approval from the government to begin mining. In early 2022, however, Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic was deported from Australia because of his COVID-19 vaccination status, causing furor among the Serbian public. As a result, the Loznica project, already unpopular among locals, was denied licenses by the Serbian government. 

Such diplomatic obstacles are likely to become more common, not less, as states develop their critical mineral strategies and protectionism rises. Furthermore, volatility in both prices and geopolitics can scare off risk-averse investors, who can easily shift their funds to safer harbors. Paradoxically, then, the societal importance of critical minerals may result in a capital shortage for mines, rather than the expected funding deluge.

I found the roundtable particularly interesting because of the presence of diplomats from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and India. Both nations expressed a keen interest in developing sustainable mineral supply chains. In the DRC, child labor is the primary concern; according to some estimates, over 40,000 children work in cobalt mines in the country. Corporate panelists echoed this worry; child labor in the Congo has hurt their bottom line as consumers of cobalt turn to alternate sources to avoid perceptual risks. With that in mind, mining companies in the region have turned to live satellite feeds and site visits to reassure their customers that their cobalt is sourced responsibly.

In addition to calling for stronger labor standards, the DRC’s diplomats also emphasized the need for broader sustainable development driven by mining revenues. Informed by Africa’s history of extractive investment by Western powers, they argued that multinational mining firms ought to fund not only mines and roads, but also schools, hospitals, and other public infrastructure. In addition to the obvious benefits to quality of life for Congolese workers, this approach would diversify the DRC’s economy across both the primary and service sectors. Diversification is vital because it bolsters the economy’s resistance to shocks in commodity prices. Sectoral transformation also reduces the risk of Dutch disease, a phenomenon where a high volume of exports of a single good appreciates the currency of a country and makes other exports relatively more expensive for foreign purchasers.

Another takeaway was the importance of minerals both within and beyond the clean energy transition. I’ve heard a lot about the role minerals play in green technology, including batteries, power transmission lines, and photovoltaic cells, but I was impressed to learn more about the value of minerals in other critical industries such as defense. One panelist summarized the ubiquity of minerals with this crude, but surprisingly accurate quip: “if it’s not grown, it’s mined.” 

John Kerry’s Fusion Announcement

The highlight of the conference was The Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Forum. There U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry delivered a major policy announcement on nuclear fusion. In his speech, Kerry (who has since retired from his post) detailed a new agenda for international cooperation on fusion energy, with five core pillars: research and development, supply-chain improvements, regulation, workforce development, and education.

Kerry started his remarks with a reality check. While serving as a senator, he heard from scientists that fusion was 30 years away, only to hear a decade later that the technology was, yet again, 30 years away. In other words, the prospect of profitable and scalable fusion has long been little more than a pipe dream.

However, Kerry’s announcement comes on the heels of a breakthrough finding in the fusion space. In December 2022, researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory achieved net energy gain, which occurs when energy output from fusion reactions is greater than the input required to start the reactions. In time, I suspect that this event will be termed the reaction heard around the world given that it has sparked a wave of global fusion investment. China, currently the global leader in fusion patents, now aims for an industrial reactor by 2035, while the UK, Germany, Japan, and South Korea have all poured funds into the sector.

At the forum, I had the pleasure of meeting a representative from AlphaRing, a Taiwan-based startup working on small modular fusion. Their ultimate vision is to create a stable fusion reactor that is smaller than a microwave, which would unlock a world of possibilities for distributed energy. AlphaRing and similar startups are an indication of the potential for international collaboration on fusion. Given the dispersed nature of capital and talent in nuclear energy, building bridges across borders represents an important strategy to accelerate fusion development. Kerry’s initiative, then, is a step in the right direction.

Overall Impressions

I’m conflicted about the optics and ethics of hosting a climate conference in the UAE, one of the world’s largest oil producers. Indeed, there was a fair amount of greenwashing at the conference, including a massive pavilion dedicated to showcasing the Saudi Green Initiative. It’s also somewhat ironic, I think, that most of the 80,000 attendees of the conference flew to Dubai, producing a boatload (planeload?) of carbon emissions along the way.

Despite those concerns, it was encouraging to see a spirit of problem-solving and urgency at the conference, with attendees willing to put pressure on signatory states and major polluters to pull their weight. Speakers were upfront about their frustration with the UAE’s host role and steadfast in their calls for a phase-down and phase-out of fossil fuels.

From my perspective as a student, the conference was a clarifying experience that sharpened my understanding of developments in the climate space. I’m very grateful that I got to share my experience through a video diary, a Chicago Maroon article, and a piece in UChicago News. I’m also indebted to the University of Chicago Career Advancement and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago for supporting my participation in the conference. Here’s to more learning at COP29 in Azerbaijan!