Critical mineral constraints pressure energy transition and trade toward the Paris Agreement climate goals

The clean energy transition centered on photovoltaic solar and wind power is widely regarded as the fundamental way to achieve the Paris Agreement’s pledges. The development of clean energies, however, relies much more on critical minerals than that of conventional ones. It is therefore vital to incorporate mineral constraints into integrated assessment modeling and designing of energy transition pathways. To this end, we reexamine the feasibility of China’s energy transition evaluated by 5 typical integrated assessment models, then reconfigure the pathways and assess possible trade and warming risks by designing primary mineral supply, recovery and technological progress scenarios. The results indicate that the contribution of solar and wind power to achieve the Paris Agreement goals may far below our expectation due to critical mineral constraints, and the installed capacity of the targeted two renewables will averagely decline by over 56.7% and 68.9%, respectively, by 2060 under the 1.5 °C warming limit. This may lead to an emission gap of carbon reduction by up to 2.35 GtCO2, which will greatly challenge China’s attainment of carbon neutrality. Resource scarcity and associated trade risks will limit China’s comprehensive energy transition; even with possible material substitution, the contribution of wind and solar power will be far from expected, yielding a big gap of carbon reductions.