Next, comes Europe’s strategic climate hypocrisy.
As part of our concern for the climate, we’ve pushed our energy-intensive plants outside the Continent. The steel industry is an important example of this, as the economy needs steel in virtually every investment — large and small — and yet our industry is dying, with the trade deficit of steel products increasing by 20 million metric tons in the last decade.
But what’s the climate benefit if these greenhouse gases from steel production are still emitted by companies in Turkey, Ukraine or Asia instead of the EU? We’re living under the illusion of environmentalism, while in reality, we haven’t reduced global emissions, just deprived ourselves of jobs, profits, raw material sovereignty and, therefore, security.
Speaking of raw materials, the pace of Europe’s energy transition will depend on its access to critical materials, which it will need in far more significant quantities than ever before. Producing one electric vehicle, for instance, requires more than 200 kilograms of rare earth minerals — six times more than a conventional vehicle. And the International Energy Agency predicts a sharp rise in demand for critical resources by 2050.
Currently, however, the EU heavily depends on China and Russia for these materials, with China providing 95 percent of our manganese, 89 percent of our magnesium and 87 percent of our cobalt. And even amid its aggression against Ukraine, Russia remains one of Europe’s top suppliers of essential nickel, aluminum and copper.
It’s only in recent months that the bloc has finally taken action to increase its own extraction, processing and recycling of critical raw materials, with the Critical Raw Materials Act setting benchmarks for EU capacity — extracting at least 10 percent of annual consumption from its resources, processing 40 percent of yearly consumption and recycling 25 percent of annual consumption — all to be achieved by 2030.
