In line with the Paris Agreement, the global community has committed to holding the rise in global temperatures below 1.5 °C pre-industrial levels. At COP26, held recently in Glasgow, participating parties are expected to strengthen their commitment to ambitious 2030 emissions reduction targets to achieve net-zero emissions by the middle of the 21st century. Achieving these ambitious climate goals requires all countries to phase out coal consumption, speed up electrification of transport technologies and mobilize significant investment in renewable energy technologies.

This report examines the role of rare earth metals and other materials in the clean energy economy. It was prepared by the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) based on data collected and research performed during 2010. In the report, DoE describes plans to: (1) develop its first integrated research agenda addressing critical materials, building on three technical workshops convened by the DoE during November and December 2010; (2) strengthen its capacity for information-gathering on this topic; and (3) work closely with international partners, including Japan and Europe, to reduce vulnerability to supply disruptions and address critical material needs. Charts and tables. This is a print on demand report.

"The International Resource Panel (IRP) was established to provide independent, coherent and authoritative scientific assessments on the use of natural resources and their environmental impacts over the full life cycle. The Panel aims to contribute to a better understanding of how to decouple economic growth from environmental degradation while enhancing well-being. The Secretariat is hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme. IRP assessments demonstrate the opportunities for governments, businesses and wider society to work together to create and implement policies that ultimately lead to sustainable resource management, including through better planning, technological innovation and strategic incentives and investments. Materials are vital to modern society, but their production is an important source of greenhouse gases. Emissions from material production are now comparable to those from agriculture, forestry, and land use change combined, yet they have received much less attention from the climate policy community. The IPR authors propose looking beyond energy efficiency to reduce global carbon footprint. This report was developed by the IRP in response to a request from the Group of 7. It conducts a rigorous assessment of the contribution of material efficiency to GHG abatement strategies. More concretely, it assesses the potential reduction of GHG emissions from material efficiency strategies applied in residential buildings and light duty vehicles, and reviews policies that address these strategies. The IRP modelling results show that increasing material efficiency can help enhance efforts in moving towards the 1.5° C target set by the Paris Agreement." -- Page 4 of cover

Geoethics for the Future: Facing Global Challenges offers the latest points of view on highly topical issues in geosciences, including climate change, sustainable development, and energy transition, enabling readers to acquire multifaceted knowledge of topics of global relevance and highlighting the importance of the issues affecting geosciences in the 21st Century. The book outlines how geoethical considerations are integral in providing new insights and analyses for improving the theoretical structure of geoethics and its practical applications, with an aim to create conditions for sharing perspectives on the best ways for implementing scientific action to face global anthropogenic changes. - Covers upcoming and current key topics, and emphasizes the urgency to find reference frameworks and effective solutions to the issues associated with them. - Includes multifaceted analyses on relevant topics, by leveraging the cross-cutting contributions of experts to address urgent, global, and complex issues related to human-Earth system interaction. - Provides an indispensable basis for discussion to guide scientists in considering their own responsibilities and to highlight the societal relevance of the geosciences. - Discusses philosophical, ethical, social, political, economic, legal, and theological aspects of geoscience, technological applications, and anthropogenic impacts on physical environment through the lens of geoethics, in time of profound planetary changes. - Bridges the geosciences, social sciences, and humanities, aiming to address the socio-ecological crisis from multiple perspectives and with greater effectiveness.

Raw materials have been essential in the development of all human societies through history and moving into a greener, more carbon-lean future we become increasingly reliant on access to a growing number of raw materials. Minerals for new technologies improving the quality of our lives and the environment are the building blocks of the new Green Stone Age. This Special Publication presents ongoing research and mapping programmes focusing on minerals needed for the transformation to greener societies. In addition to new exploration models and shared geological information on the different prospective currently mined areas, the notion of criticality in different countries is discussed and examples of ongoing national and cross-country research and mapping programmes are presented. In addition to the resource/reserve and technical-economic aspects, the social and environmental dimensions are also a focus in some of the contributions, as holistic approaches to the exploration and exploitation of critical minerals and materials are needed to fulfil the green transition and goals for the Green Stone Age.

This Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report (IPCC-SRREN) assesses the potential role of renewable energy in the mitigation of climate change. It covers the six most important renewable energy sources - bioenergy, solar, geothermal, hydropower, ocean and wind energy - as well as their integration into present and future energy systems. It considers the environmental and social consequences associated with the deployment of these technologies, and presents strategies to overcome technical as well as non-technical obstacles to their application and diffusion. SRREN brings a broad spectrum of technology-specific experts together with scientists studying energy systems as a whole. Prepared following strict IPCC procedures, it presents an impartial assessment of the current state of knowledge: it is policy relevant but not policy prescriptive. SRREN is an invaluable assessment of the potential role of renewable energy for the mitigation of climate change for policymakers, the private sector, and academic researchers.

Minerals are part of virtually every product we use. Common examples include copper used in electrical wiring and titanium used to make airplane frames and paint pigments. The Information Age has ushered in a number of new mineral uses in a number of products including cell phones (e.g., tantalum) and liquid crystal displays (e.g., indium). For some minerals, such as the platinum group metals used to make cataytic converters in cars, there is no substitute. If the supply of any given mineral were to become restricted, consumers and sectors of the U.S. economy could be significantly affected. Risks to minerals supplies can include a sudden increase in demand or the possibility that natural ores can be exhausted or become too difficult to extract. Minerals are more vulnerable to supply restrictions if they come from a limited number of mines, mining companies, or nations. Baseline information on minerals is currently collected at the federal level, but no established methodology has existed to identify potentially critical minerals. This book develops such a methodology and suggests an enhanced federal initiative to collect and analyze the additional data needed to support this type of tool.