$100 billion a year extra needed to achieve climate neutrality.
Mike Henry, CEO of mining group BHP, believes a massive wave of investment in the raw materials sector is needed to extract the resources required to meet climate targets. The demand for copper will double, he said, and four times the amount of nickel will be needed. Henry, in his speech at the World Mining Congress in Brisbane, Australia, spoke of a possible order of magnitude of an additional $100 billion per year. One way to boost productivity in the sector, he said, is to use machine learning. BHP is already cooperating in this area with the start-up KoBold Metals, which uses artificial intelligence to search for raw material deposits.
At the same time, the CEO of the second-largest mining company in the world warned against government intervention without industry involvement. The efforts of many countries to secure raw material supplies are understandable, he said, but the solution should be sought in a combination of pragmatic international cooperation and competition. Instead, governments should focus on what is within their sphere of influence. This includes, for example, making locations attractive for investment. In Australia, that means speeding up approval processes for mining projects, according to Henry.
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