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The World Bank launched the Climate-Smart Mining Facility, the first-ever fund dedicated to making mining for minerals climate-smart and sustainable. The Facility will support the sustainable extraction and processing of minerals and metals used in clean energy technologies, such as wind, solar power, and batteries for energy storage and electric vehicles. It focuses on helping resource-rich developing countries benefit from the increasing demand for minerals and metals, while ensuring the mining sector is managed in a way that minimizes the environmental and climate footprint.
The Facility evolves out of a World Bank report “The Growing Role of Minerals and Metals for a Low-Carbon Future” which found that a low-carbon future will be significantly more mineral intensive than a business as usual scenario. Global demand for “strategic minerals” such as lithium, graphite and nickel will skyrocket by 965%, 383% and 108% respectively by 2050.* While the growing demand for minerals and metals offers an opportunity for mineral-rich developing countries, it also represents a challenge: without climate-smart mining practices, the negative impacts from mining activities will increase, affecting vulnerable communities and environment.
Projects may include:
Supporting the integration of renewable energy into mining operations, given that the mining sector accounts for up to 11 percent of global energy use and that mining operations in remote areas often rely on diesel or coal
Supporting the strategic use of geological data for a better understanding of “strategic mineral” endowments
Forest-smart mining: preventing deforestation and supporting sustainable land-use practices; repurposing mine sites
Recycling of minerals: supporting developing countries to take a circular economy approach and reuse minerals in a way that respects the environment
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