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For years China has dominated in the global supply chains of critical minerals, which are crucial to deploying low carbon energy technology and accelerating the global energy transition. Particularly, China's dominance is very apparent in the global supplies of rare earth, graphite, manganese and cobalt. These minerals are critical to the production of electric vehicle batteries and wind power turbines.

However, the food and oil & natural gas supply chains disruptions resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine have made the policy makers of European Union (E.U.) act to de-risk the E.U. critical minerals supply. For E.U., this is a multi-faceted dilemma. On one hand, E.U. needs to speed up its actions in decarbonizing its energy system and build up strategic partnerships on circular economy and climate change with many developing countries. On the other hand, E.U. has to make strategic economic balance when China, its most important trading partner, and U.S., its strategic ally, engage in a long term rivalry and geopolitical tension.

What can E.U. mitigate or de-risk the critical minerals supply? Today, Dr. Patrick Schröder, a senior fellow from the Royal Institute of International Affairs, shares his views and observations.

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