Impacts of climate change on mining, related environmental risks and raw material supply

The aim of the project “Impacts of climate change on the environmental criticality of Germany’s raw material demand” (KlimRess), was to assess how climate change potentially affects the environmental risks of mining and raw material supply chains. This final report summarizes the results of the project. The report offers insights on climate change impacts from five qualitative case studies, providing answers to the questions: How are environmental risks of mining impacted by climate change? How are raw material supply chains affected? Furthermore, the report presents and discusses the results of a quantitative climate change vulnerability assessment of main producing countries and reserves of bauxite, coking coal, copper, iron ore, lithium, nickel, PGMs, tin, and tungsten, focussing on the following questions: Which raw material-producing countries are comparatively more at risk from climate change? What conclusions can be drawn about the global primary production of certain raw materials and their vulnerability to climate change? How might these risks change in the future?