Making critical materials valuable: decarbonization, investment & ‘political risk’

Any coherent attempt to restrict warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels will require sustained efforts to decarbonize electricity production and transport infrastructure. Any such moves will have consequences for the demand of certain ‘critical raw materials’, notably cobalt, lithium and platinum group metals (PGMs). This chapter draws on Science & Technology Studies approaches to studying valuation practices and resource-making to examine frontiers of critical material extraction in the DRC (cobalt, lithium) and South Africa (platinum group metals). It traces the role that royalty and taxation rates, stability clauses and political risk assessments play in shaping critical material frontiers in post-colonial contexts. The chapter argues that embedding measures of ‘political risk’ into assessments of critical raw materials based on the needs of wealthy resource-importing countries risks reproducing colonial legacies of violent and unequal extraction. It argues for the need to ‘provincialize’ criticality assessments, starting from resource-rich settings and the strategic agendas that shape their domestic mineral policies.