English references

Critical minerals, which are essential for a range of energy technologies and for the broader economy, have become a major focus in global policy and trade discussions. Price volatility, supply chain bottlenecks and geopolitical concerns make the regular monitoring of their supply and demand extremely vital.

In 1919, at the height of a global crisis that resulted from the turmoil of the Russian Revolution, the devastation of the first world war, and the collapse of Europe’s great continental empires, Irish writer William Butler Yeats penned his famed warning to humanity, mourning the end of the old world: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.”

The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, on Monday issued a blistering critique of the world’s failure to rein in global warming, calling on countries to return every year to review their climate targets — not every five years, as the Paris climate agreement spells out. “Even if the recent pledges were clear and credible — and there are serious questions about some of them — we are still careening towards climate catastrophe,” he said at the opening ceremony of COP26, the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow.