“Resources Matter” – new book by former Department members highlights positive opportunities around mined resources

“Resources Matter” – new book by former Department members highlights positive opportunities around mined resources

The recent COP29 discussions in Baku have drawn attention once more to an underlying tension - climate campaigners tend to regard metals and minerals, as well as fossil fuels as negative influences on nature and the climate, while by contrast the many poorer economies richly endowed with such resources see them as vital to their prospects for future growth and greater prosperity.

A new book by Tony Addison and Alan Roe, both former members of the Department of Economics, shines new light on these debates by providing detailed, but critical analysis of the many opportunities which the global transition to net-zero offers to countries rich in those rare metals and minerals, and also natural gas which are essential to a low-carbon technological future.

In Resources Matter: Ending Poverty while Protecting Nature, the authors offer a range of ideas that address concerns around the dominance of fossil fuels and mining in developing countries, and propose strategies which could instead ensure much greater impact from these traditional industries as drivers of economic growth, transformation and poverty reduction.

“The problems that characterize the sector are not unsolvable, and much more can be done to improve the chances of inclusive development and to support the transition to net zero.”

The book is a follow-up to Extractive Industries: The Management of Resources as a Driver of Sustainable Development, published by Oxford University Press in 2018. This first book was an edited set of papers from over 30 authorities that covered all aspects of the role and management of metals, minerals, oil and gas in poorer economies. The new book provides fresh data and insights that connect the previous analysis to the policies needed to address the global climate crisis. It is underpinned by the anxiety that the annual COP discussions fail to adequately recognise the opportunities.

Both books draw on wide-ranging research carried out by the UNU World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER). The new book will once more be on open-access – a factor that enabled the first book to top Oxford’s Scholarship Online rankings of most accessed economics titles.

Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin, the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), comments:

“Their earlier seminal book was influential in UN decision making circles, including at the regional level, where a series of roundtables based on its outcomes and policy implications were conducted... I have no doubt that this new contribution to our knowledge will be as influential, as the world is moving fast towards the finishing line of the 2030 SDG Agenda,”

Discussing the book’s key findings, Alan Roe said:

“In climate debates, poorer countries are regarded predominantly as victims of global warming - and of course they are increasingly struggling with challenges including desertification, excess heat, and increased flooding. Hence solutions to their problems focus mainly on finding ever more eye watering sums of climate finance from richer economies. However, the debates neglect the fact that many of these countries also have substantial opportunities, based on their rich endowments of the metals crucial to the energy transition as well as natural gas, These debates need to change the way they think about the extractive industries."

Tony Addison added:

"Resources matter because ending poverty while protecting nature cannot be achieved unless the world invests in the resources necessary for the materials that underpin the transition to net zero.”

Addison and Roe make a strong case for many lower income countries being better supported by international agencies to enable them to exploit responsibly the opportunities for investment, greening and sustainable growth associated with their huge endowments of critical metals, minerals and natural gas.

If done properly, they argue, this would contribute to progress on several of the SDGs, reduce harmful emissions, improve rather than impair already stressed fiscal positions, and take the pressure off the search for the huge sums of global “climate finance” that are proving ever more difficult to raise.

• Resources Matter: Ending Poverty While Protecting Nature was published on 19 December 2024. If you would like to contact the authors, please write to economics.alumni@warwick.ac.uk and we'll forward your email to Alan and Tony.

LINKS:

• Addison A, Roe A. R. (2024) Resources matter: ending poverty while protecting nature , Oxford University Press. 2024
• Addison A, Roe A. R. (2018) Extractive Industries: The Management of Resources as a Driver of Sustainable Development (2018)
• Roe, A. R. (2024). Climate change and poorer economies: some reflections after COPs 27 and 28. Mineral Economics, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13563-024-00476-5