Legislation and trade barriers for critical minerals

As global clean energy transitions gather pace, the world is seeing intensifying competition and demand for critical minerals (CM), such as lithium, cobalt and rare earths, needed to manufacture supporting technologies. Digital and defence sectors also compete for many of the same materials, which are unevenly distributed both geologically and in materials processing and manufacturing infrastructure, leading to imminent supply threats for countries that need to import these resources from producer nations. Trade in CM has become a key policy priority as increasing trade tensions and protectionism pose a threat to climate change goals, energy security and just energy transitions. In this article, we analyse categories of trade barriers that hinder global trade in CM, especially those crucial to green energy technologies such as<br/>electric mobility, solar and wind energy, as well as for defence technologies.