Rare Earth Exchanges

Does Human and Environmental Catastrophe Correspond with European Policies to Disrupt Chinese Rare Earth Element Dominance?

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Highlights

  • EU launches initiatives to secure rare earth element (REE) supply chains and reduce dependence on China.
    • European Raw Materials Alliance
    • Critical Raw Materials Act
  • Efforts to increase domestic REE production in Europe face challenges.
    • Regulatory burdens
    • Environmental concerns
    • Potential neocolonial perceptions
  • The EU’s pursuit of REEs presents a complex balance.
    • Securing critical resources
    • Maintaining ethical standards
    • Addressing environmental impacts

Over the last few years, the European Union has launched several rare earth element (REE) initiatives in a quest to better secure the continent’s supply chains and reduce its dependence on China.  For example, launched in 2020, the European Raw Materials Alliance (opens in a new tab), targeted the boosting of domestic mining. The Critical Raw Materials Act (opens in a new tab) (CRMA) was introduced in 2023 to further reduce reliance on non-European suppliers, promote recycling and streamline the approval process for new mining projects within the bloc.

While recycling advancement becomes key, experts in REE say recycling is key, but you need to have supplies before you can reuse them, and for the EU that “will take quite some time," reports  Maarten Koese, a critical minerals researcher at Leiden University. The expert was interviewed by The Parliament. Recently editorial assistant Roos Döll (opens in a new tab) covered the topic.

Yet the EU is a heavily regulated place. And as The Parliament recently called out, the regulatory burden is meant to ensure compliance with labor and environmental standards. If the EU seeks ways to accelerate REE activity on the continent, there will be significant limitations as far as shortcuts for any new mining projects.

“The EU has robust regulations,” Brooke Moore, a policy analyst at European Policy Centre, told The Parliament. “These are being challenged by a desire to streamline the process.” 

From human rights to ethical concerns, the recent piece out of Europe reminds all that about 70% of REE derived from places plagued by violence and instability. Rampant in Africa for example—source of the world’s cobalt supply–child labor, dangerous working conditions and human rights violations (opens in a new tab) remain rampant. 

According to Emily Stewart who heads policy and EU relations for Global Witness, a human rights NGO "They’re not bringing positives to the community. They’re fueling the ongoing civil war."

Meanwhile a Queensland University study (opens in a new tab) uncovers that about 50% of REE are located under protected ecosystems.

The Real World

As Ms. Döll points out for The Parliament, there are ideal policies and then, well there is reality.  A truth that the EU relies on minerals from regions with troubled human rights records. Take the deal Europe inked (opens in a new tab) with Namibia to secure access to rare earth elements, despite the country’s mixed record on labor standards and allegations of mistreating (opens in a new tab) indigenous communities residing near mines.

Neocolonial Practice or Realities of Competition with State-Sponsored Capitalism

China of course has played a shrewd game across much of Africa as well as in other parts of the world such as South America. 

But if Europe intensifies its REE initiatives, despite various rules and regulations to ensure responsible sourcing, could the optics harken back to days of colonial adventure?

"[These deals] can be seen as a kind of neocolonial practice," Brooke Moore said. "It could really backfire when it comes to looking good compared to China." 

It's interesting that  China’s rise comes less from the colonial baggage brought by whites from Europe.

"We have for too long considered that decarbonizing meant relocating outside of the EU, and this was wrong,” Thierry Breton, the former European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services, said last year. 

In addition to exploitation and a sort of new colonialism, are the environmental externalities associated with an intensive move by Europe to challenge China’s REE dominance.  It’s ironic that the driving force for the importance of REEs is the move, largely championed by Europe, to move to a decarbonized economy. Yet the dialectic in all of this means potentially an intensification of exploitation of nature.

For example, REE-related minerals in the supply chain constitute a quarter (opens in a new tab) of global carbon emissions according to Ms. Döll writing for The Parliament.  Efforts funded by the EU to extract and ship cobalt in the DRC contributed to both deforestation (opens in a new tab) and water contamination.

Now consider the difficulty Europeans may have in intensification of domestic mining operations in the EU, despite regulations requiring domestic sourcing to reach at least 10% by 2030.

Wherever REE mining is proposed in Europe, conflict and resistance ensues. One example (opens in a new tab) raised by The Parliament is the proposed lithium mining in the Trás-os-Montes region of Portugal.

Ultimately European values may likely promote a reduction in conspicuous consumption, the true cause of resource exploitation plus associated externalities, yet the very wealth necessary for such a paradigm to exist in the first place demands more consumption for its reproduction.

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