cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/5339675
Canada will focus on securing supplies of critical minerals when it hosts its Group of Seven partners this week at a meeting of energy and environment ministers in Toronto, Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson said in an interview on Tuesday.
G7 countries, except Japan, are heavily or exclusively reliant on China for a range of materials from rare earth magnets to battery metals.
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“We will see this week many examples of us moving beyond talks to firm commitments to fund several types of tools (to secure critical minerals),” Hodgson said. The G7 meeting will be held from October 30 to October 31.
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He said Canada intended to be a leader in securing supply chains for all of its key allies, to reduce reliance on China. Canada produces several critical metals such as nickel, copper and cobalt.
Some of the announcements expected this week from the G7 meeting will be on stockpiling of critical minerals and investments in new mining and processing operations, Hodgson said.
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Cool, more resource wars. Just what our fucking climate needs.
Such a shame we can’t recycle any of this stuff.
Recycling and alternative sourcing are not mutually exclusive. At least here in Europe there are also plans to also recycle this stuff, and I would assume this will be also part of the game in Canada and everywhere else.
The thing about recycling schemes is that they’re almost universally bullshit, and end at the same dump as all your other bins¹.
Like slavery-free clothing: the theory is nice, much of the technology does mostly exist, and we need to actually do the thing if we want society on a habitable earth in 50 years, but it just isn’t lived up to in the overwhelming majority of cases.
¹usually in a country you havent thought about for years.