4D Conversation with Anders Wijkman

Natural resources, geopolitics and the Metacrisis From rare-earth minerals to energy systems and strategic territories, control over natural resources is rapidly becoming one of the defining forces shaping global politics today. Rare-earth minerals, for example, were until recently unfamiliar terms to most people. Today they are part of geopolitical negotiations - from discussions around possible US–Ukraine agreements in the context of a peace deal with Russia, to the renewed global attention on Greenland, whose strategic importance is partly linked to its significant rare-earth mineral deposits. But access to and control of resources is only one part of the story. Equally important - if not more so - is the rapid increase in global material use and its environmental consequences. Global material use has more than tripled since 1970 - from around 30 billion tons to 106 billion tons per year. The environmental impact is dramatic. The extraction and processin…