China, Critical Minerals, and the Path to Supply Chain Resilience
Virtual Briefing Series
Tuesday, November 19th, 2024 | 12:00 PM – 1:15 PM ET
Critical minerals power the current and future tech and energy revolutions, yet today they’re at the center of a high-stakes game of global supply and security. With China controlling a large portion of mineral processing for resources like rare earth elements, lithium, and cobalt, the need for a resilient, diversified supply chain is a national security imperative is. This panel will explore the current landscape of the critical mineral supply chain from both private sector and policy perspectives, dissecting the risks, the geopolitics, and the future pathways toward a secure and sustainable supply system. Join us on Tuesday, November 19th with Ms. Sharon Burke, the Founder and President of Ecospherics & former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Operational Energy; and Professor Sophia Kalantzakos, Global Distinguished Professor in Environmental Studies and Public Policy at the New York University Abu Dhabi as we discuss how to reduce dependence, foster resilience, and secure access to these vital resources.
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SPEAKER:
Sharon E. Burke
The Hon. Sharon E. Burke is the Founder and President of Ecospherics. Throughout her career, she has worked to balance national security and environmental sustainability, with a focus on ideas that scale through public policy. Burke has been a leader at several civic organizations, including the Center for a New American Security, where she initiated a Natural Security program, Amnesty International USA, and New America. She has also served in the U.S. government in Congress, the State Department, and the Pentagon, most recently as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Operational Energy. During the Biden-Harris presidential transition, she was on the Defense Agency Review and National Security and Foreign Policy teams. A native of Los Angeles and educated at Williams College and Columbia University, Burke is a frequent public speaker, published writer, and strategic advisor to corporate boards, national laboratories, and U.S. government agencies.
Sophia Kalantzakos
Sophia Kalantzakos is Global Distinguished Professor in Environmental Studies and Public Policy at New York University Abu Dhabi. Her research centers on the geopolitics of critical minerals, the transition to a net zero future, and the fourth industrial revolution. Her work examines how resource competition in an era of fraught geopolitics has tilted the balance toward securitized assessments of global interdependence. Moreover, she examines China’s global aspirations manifested through the Belt and Road Initiative and ecological civilization, Europe’s reckoning with a seismic push against both its normative and economic power, and the US’s re-evaluation of its leadership role in the global order. Her new project addresses the geopolitics of food security in the Anthropocene. Kalantzakos’ publications include Critical Minerals, the Climate Crisis and the Tech-Imperium, editor (Cham, Switzerland: Springer 2023), China and the Geopolitics of Rare Earths (Oxford University Press, 2018; rev.2021) and The EU, US, and China Tackling Climate Change: Policies and Alliances for the Anthropocene (Routledge, 2017). Kalantzakos is the Founding Head of eARThumanities and the Geopolitics and Ecology of Himalayan Water research initiatives at NYUAD. She was a Fellow at the Rachel Carson Center at LMU, a Fung Fellow at Princeton, and RIHST fellow at Caltech and the Huntington.
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Image credit: Highsmith, C. M. Massive machinery at work in the open-pit Wyodak coal mine in the coal-rich Powder River Basin outside Gillette, Wyoming [Digital image]. Carol M. Highsmith’s America, Library of Congress collection. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel
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