How to make sure critical minerals are an enabler, not a bottleneck, for clean energy transitions

Ever since the International Energy Agency was founded in 1974 in the wake of severe disruptions to global oil markets that shook the world economy, its core mission has been to foster secure and affordable energy supplies.
 
Today, the global energy system is in the midst of a major transition to clean energy. The efforts of an ever-expanding number of countries and companies to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to net zero call for the massive deployment of a wide range of clean energy technologies, many of which in turn rely on critical minerals such as copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt and rare earth elements.