The Department of the Environment; Climate and Communications has commissioned a report Green Metals: Demand Arising from Decarbonisation of Energy and Transport Sectors. The report estimates metal and material demand stemming from energy and transport sectoral targets to 2030 using knowledge of raw material usage in green technologies. The report is available at www.gov.ie
My Department’s Policy Statement on Mining and Mineral Exploration published in 2022 outlines a framework that supports environmentally sustainable mineral exploration and to maximise the contribution that exploration and mining can make to our society, economic development and the transition to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions through the supply of the raw materials.
Securing a sustainable supply of raw materials has become an issue of importance for the EU. The Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications has been leading negotiations for Ireland on the Critical Raw Materials (CRM) Act. The proposal aims to strengthen the different stages of the European critical raw materials CRM value chain; diversify the EU's imports of CRMs to reduce strategic dependencies; improve the EU capacity to monitor and mitigate current and future risks of supply disruptions; and ensure the free movement of CRMs on the single market. All actions arising from these objectives will be based on socially and environmentally responsible practices and value chain development in mineral-producing countries. This is essential for the achievement of the EU’s Green Deal objectives and for green economic development in mineral-producing countries outside of Europe.
