Ensuring a stable global supply chain is crucial to the world’s sustainable development, particularly towards decarbonization efforts throughout the value chain of various cornerstone industries and products. Rising trade tensions and tariff wars, the ever-increasing demand for critical minerals, and risks to global energy security due to geopolitical tensions jeopardize the stability needed to ensure global collaboration on reducing CO2 emissions—a critical step towards the sustainable development goals (SDGs). This is particularly problematic for energy-intensive industries, such as manufacturing, mining, and transportation.  

Additionally, the attempt to reshore and friendshore clean technology production networks has triggered debates on the merits of free trade and globalization, broadened energy security concerns, and prompted new South–South relations and regionalisms.

This his session will explore these issues in the current geopolitical context and discuss some concrete steps that various stakeholder groups can take to overcome these challenges, which are significant obstacles to the decarbonization efforts in energy-intensive industries.