Scholarlink

<p>Limiting global warming to 1.5–2&#xa0;°C requires rapid, large-scale deployment of mineral-intensive technologies for batteries, electrified transport, renewable power generation, and grid expansion. Most Net-Zero Emissions (NZE) pathways implicitly assume that the critical minerals enabling these systems—especially lithium, graphite, nickel, rare-earth elements, and copper—are available in sufficient quantities and can scale without binding physical constraints. However, empirical evidence indicates that supply growth is limited by infrastructure-constrained throughput, multi-year project lead times, concentrated refining capacity, and geopolitical exposure. We developed a material-constrained analytical framework to integrate technology-specific mineral demand, plausible global supply envelopes, and a system-wide feasibility frontier. The frontier identifies the binding mineral in each year and determines the fraction of the NZE trajectory that remains physically deployable under currently committed supply trajectories. Applying this framework to global mitigation pathways yields a Mineral-Constrained Carbon Budget (MCCB) for 2025–2050. Mineral stress intensifies sharply through mid-century, with lithium emerging as the dominant systemic constraint. The feasibility frontier declines from ≈ 0.77 in 2030 to ≈ 0.32 in 2040. Consequently, only ∼255 Gt CO₂ of the ∼610 Gt CO₂ mitigation embedded in NZE pathways is physically achievable within the deterministic boundary conditions adopted here, while almost 355 Gt CO₂ (≈ 58%) becomes mineral-induced emissions slippage—equivalent to nearly nine years of current global fossil-fuel CO₂ emissions. The mitigation deficit expands non-linearly as mineral demand accelerates while supply remains bounded by committed infrastructure expansion. These findings show that critical-mineral scarcity imposes a structural ceiling on the achievable pace of global decarbonization in the near-term transition window. Carbon-budget assessments that assume unconstrained technology deployment substantially overestimate feasible mitigation when material throughput constraints are not explicitly incorporated. Aligning climate strategies with physical resource limits will require accelerated mineral-supply expansion, large-scale recycling and circularity, reductions in mineral intensity, and shifts toward less mineral-dependent technological pathways.</p>

错误：搜索内容不能为空，请输入英文关键词
错误：关键词超出字数限制，请精简
高级检索

Physical limits to net-zero: how critical minerals reshape the global carbon budget

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年4月17日

查看全文
  • Yassine Charabi

摘要

Limiting global warming to 1.5–2 °C requires rapid, large-scale deployment of mineral-intensive technologies for batteries, electrified transport, renewable power generation, and grid expansion. Most Net-Zero Emissions (NZE) pathways implicitly assume that the critical minerals enabling these systems—especially lithium, graphite, nickel, rare-earth elements, and copper—are available in sufficient quantities and can scale without binding physical constraints. However, empirical evidence indicates that supply growth is limited by infrastructure-constrained throughput, multi-year project lead times, concentrated refining capacity, and geopolitical exposure. We developed a material-constrained analytical framework to integrate technology-specific mineral demand, plausible global supply envelopes, and a system-wide feasibility frontier. The frontier identifies the binding mineral in each year and determines the fraction of the NZE trajectory that remains physically deployable under currently committed supply trajectories. Applying this framework to global mitigation pathways yields a Mineral-Constrained Carbon Budget (MCCB) for 2025–2050. Mineral stress intensifies sharply through mid-century, with lithium emerging as the dominant systemic constraint. The feasibility frontier declines from ≈ 0.77 in 2030 to ≈ 0.32 in 2040. Consequently, only ∼255 Gt CO₂ of the ∼610 Gt CO₂ mitigation embedded in NZE pathways is physically achievable within the deterministic boundary conditions adopted here, while almost 355 Gt CO₂ (≈ 58%) becomes mineral-induced emissions slippage—equivalent to nearly nine years of current global fossil-fuel CO₂ emissions. The mitigation deficit expands non-linearly as mineral demand accelerates while supply remains bounded by committed infrastructure expansion. These findings show that critical-mineral scarcity imposes a structural ceiling on the achievable pace of global decarbonization in the near-term transition window. Carbon-budget assessments that assume unconstrained technology deployment substantially overestimate feasible mitigation when material throughput constraints are not explicitly incorporated. Aligning climate strategies with physical resource limits will require accelerated mineral-supply expansion, large-scale recycling and circularity, reductions in mineral intensity, and shifts toward less mineral-dependent technological pathways.