About

All about the Climate Mineral Explorer

The Climate Mineral Explorer (CME) focuses on the materiality of the low-carbon transition, required to combat the threat of the climate change and the scale of increase in demand for critical minerals for the transition such as aluminum, copper and lithium (World Bank, 2017; World Bank, 2020). The platform builds on the work of the Climate-Smart Mining Initiative (CSM).

There is a growing cognizance of the importance of understanding the supply chains of these minerals to help facilitate their steady and secure supply, while integrating an ESG approach to managing these mineral-technology supply chains. These recent developments have led CSM team to develop a new program to better understand minerals supply chains, particularly in respect to developing countries, as well as the associated emissions of the minerals needed for Climate Action (SDG 13).

CME maps mineral supply chains from extraction to end-use of low-carbon technologies, identify where greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are located within each step of the supply chain. It provides key information to enable users to make decisions regarding how these emissions could be minimized while ensuring a steady supply of critical minerals globally.

In this first version, CME 1.0 provides view of the GHG, energy and shipping footprints for stakeholders along the supply chain of lithium, a mineral that is critical to deploy electric vehicles (EV) at scale to enhance climate action. This dashboard compares different lithium supply chain routes from mine to end user to determine possible options to reduce GHG emissions, shipping emissions and energy use, in accordance with user preferences and country location. In the second version, CME 2.0 focuses on the supply chain of natural graphite. The tool was meticulously designed in a modular format, facilitating the seamless incorporation of new mineral-technology combinations and policy recommendations, paving the way for its evolution into a versatile multimineral-technology platform.

Data and information for this dashboard are drawn from publicly available sources, including the Argonne National Laboratory and International Energy Agency, and was obtained via an extensive review of literature. This data provides estimates of country and supply-chain stage estimates of energy, shipping and GHG emissions.

This data is then used in the dashboard to provide information on the key global lithium and graphite supply chains, all the while enabling users to customize their own supply chain and compare the emissions footprint of their supply chain against others. Information and data are then provided to users to help them understand their options in reducing their GHG emissions.

For any inquiries and potential collaboration please contact the development team:

Climate-Smart Mining

Climate-Smart Mining (CSM) supports the sustainable extraction, processing and recycling of minerals and metals needed to secure supply for low-carbon technologies and other critical sectors by creating shared value, delivering social, economic and environmental benefits throughout their value chain in developing and emerging economies.

The World Bank’s Climate-Smart Mining Initiative is a public-private partnership led by the World Bank and IFC with the aim of achieving more sustainable mineral supply chains by providing technical and policy advice, direct investment financing, leveraging private sector financing, providing risk mitigation instruments, and helping countries define and craft tangible solutions for decarbonizing and improving ESG standards for climate action minerals.

CSM achieves this objective by focusing its activities on a framework developed in consultation with key stakeholders in government, industry, and civil society, serving as guidance to help developing countries integrate climate-smart approaches through four pillars:

  1. Decarbonization

  2. Climate Resilience

  3. Circular Economy

  4. Market Opportunities.

Figure 1: Climate-Smart Mining Framework

These four pillars formed the basis of the structure for the Policies and Regulations page, with information on policies, strategies, laws and targets categorized into one of these four pillars.

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