Critical Minerals Summit: Australia can be a global powerhouse, Caroline Kennedy says

Caroline Kennedy says the shift to clean power and technology can elevate Australia in the mining of critical minerals.

US Ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy.

Caroline Kennedy says the world’s transition to clean power and technology has the potential to elevate Australia as a global leader in the mining of critical minerals, lithium, rare earths and nickel.

In a pre-recorded speech for The Australian-PwC Critical Minerals Summit, the US ambassador to Australia said governments and industry must work in tandem to “meet increasing global demand and reach our emissions” targets.

Ms Kennedy, who arrived in Canberra to take-up her posting in July, also backed building new “secure supply chains that can withstand natural disasters, global pandemics and economic coercion”.

“Responsibly sourced and processed critical minerals are essential to achieving our climate goals, and laying the foundation for this new green economy and our climate ambitions,” Ms Kennedy said.

“In response, several Australian companies have already expanded operations to the United States, where they are supplying automakers in America with battery minerals from Australia.

“This is truly a time of immense opportunity for Australia, with its abundance of lithium, rare earths, nickel and other critical minerals.

“To meet increasing global demand and reach our net-zero emissions, we need industry and government to partner and invest in research and development, workforce development, extraction, processing and manufacturing.”

The US recently passed historic legislation to invest $558bn over 10 years towards combating the “climate crisis” and supporting energy security.

Joe Biden’s top diplomat in the country said innovative leaders were “ready to take on these challenges and lead the way forward … as President Biden has said, this is the decisive decade to transition to clean energy”.

Ms Kennedy, who has a strong interest in the Albanese government’s push for a voice to parliament, said Australia and the US had a responsibility to Indigenous peoples to urgently “tackle climate change and responsibly source the critical minerals necessary for our transition to clean energy”.

“Indigenous peoples continue to teach us valuable lessons about our connection to the land, and our collective responsibility for its care and conservation,” she said.

In her summit speech on Friday, Resources Minister Madeleine King will say Australia’s critical minerals and rare earths are “central to the global energy transition required to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. For the world to achieve the global Paris goals, low emissions technologies will need to be adopted across all sectors of national economies.

“And a great deal of the clean energy transition over the coming decades will ride on the back of critical minerals,” Ms King will say.

“These minerals are essential to such things as storage batteries, electric vehicle motors, solar panels and wind turbines.

“They are driving radical change in the technologies that power our homes, offices, factories, vehicles and communication devices.”

After signing a Japan-Australia critical minerals partnership last month, Ms King will say new supply chains between like-minded economies will deliver huge windfalls for the nation.

“During my visit to Japan just over a week ago, tech company Panasonic explained how they were using West Australian nickel sulphate to make batteries in Nevada for Tesla EVs,” she will say.

“That’s nickel sulphate from BHP’s Nickel West refinery in my electorate of Kwinana, going into batteries in Nevada – that are then being shipped all over the world in new Teslas.”

Ms King will say Arafura Resources recently signed deals with major US company General Electric and South Korean motoring giants Hyundai and Kia, and to promote the work of Lynas.

“Lynas is the largest integrated rare earths producer of its kind outside China,” she will tell the summit.

“It is building a new rare earths processing facility in Kalgoorlie to process the rare earth concentrate from its Mount Weld mine.

“The facility will crack, leach and upgrade the rare earths concentrate from Mount Weld that is currently being exported to the Lynas advanced materials plant in Malaysia.”