Global mineral hoarding risks inflating clean energy costs and deepening inequality
Original framing: “The scramble to stockpile critical minerals could drive up energy transition costs” — Climate Home News
The current mineral rush echoes the colonial-era 'scramble for Africa' and the 20th-century oil rush, where resource control became a tool of geopolitical dominance. These historical patterns reveal how resource competition is often weaponized to maintain power imbalances.
The scramble for critical minerals is not just an economic or technological issue, but a deeply systemic one, rooted in colonial histories, extractive capitalism, and geopolitical competition.
Indigenous and non-Western perspectives offer alternative models of resource stewardship that prioritize sustainability and equity. By integrating these insights into global governance frameworks and investing in circular economies and material innovation, the energy transition can be reoriented toward justice and resilience. The role of the trickster here is to expose the contradictions between the rhetoric of sustainability and the reality of resource exploitation, urging a more honest and inclusive path forward.