The increasing strategic importance of rare earth elements is shaped by geopolitical factors, supply risks, and rising demand from high-technology, energy transition, and defense sectors, rather than geological scarcity. For the European Union, rare earth elements represent both a critical vulnerability and an essential resource for achieving policy objectives. Therefore, peer-reviewed literature, industry reports, and policy documents published through 2026 were synthesized to assess geological conditions of rare earths global and EU resources, current mining and refining capacities, potential contribution of selected alternative sources, and global diversifying strategies of major rare-earth consuming economies. The findings indicate that alternative sources, such as coal ash, red mud, electronic waste, and deep-sea mining, are unlikely to reduce the EU import dependence in the short to medium term due to combined geological, technological, economic, and environmental constraints. The findings show that the EU’s mining, refining, and stockpiling capacities remain comparatively underdeveloped, whereas major rare earth element-consuming economies, including China, the U.S., and Japan have strengthened supply security through integrated strategies combining domestic production, overseas investments, technological innovation, and stockpiling. To reduce strategic dependence, the EU requires an integrated strategy aligned with the Critical Raw Materials Act, including expanded exploration incentives and refining capacity, strategic partnerships and coordinated stockpiling mechanisms. Such measures are essential to enhance resilience against supply disruptions, strengthen competitiveness, and support the EU’s transition to a sustainable and secure resource future under evolving global market conditions and intensifying geopolitical competition worldwide.
Mining is central to many Latin American economies, but its relationship with climate-related international migration remains insufficiently understood. We compare agricultural and mineral indicators in an instrumental-variable framework using a 17-country panel, with baseline estimation samples covering 1970–2017. Countries are stratified by multidimensional poverty, and climate exposure is aggregated under six spatial weighting schemes. Under maintained exclusion restrictions, a 1
Until less than two centuries ago, the concept of a reserve declaration did not exist. Exploration and mining were one and the same. Once an ore deposit was discovered, mining would start immediately. It was only when large pre-investments began in the nineteenth century that a system of reserve classification developed. A three-part system emerged with two categories for reserves known through outcrops or mining activities: one category for the highest level of geological assurance and a second category for lesser assurance, called proven/proved and probable. A final category was added for prospective or possible ores, which were later classified as inferred resources. At the beginning of the twentieth century, government organizations started estimating the mineral endowment of regions or countries using, in principle, the same three-part system. This paper traces the evolution of reserve and resource classification from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present. Today, this classification is represented at the deposit or company level by the CRIRSCO standard (Committee for Mineral Reserves International Reporting Standards), which introduces the concept of Modifying Factors for the transition from resources to reserves. At the regional level, it is represented by the definitions of the U.S. Geological Survey, and for worldwide international comparisons, it is represented by the United Nations Framework Classification System (UNFC), which introduces the concept of technical feasibility. This paper connects reserve/resource categories with chances of success and discusses the lead time from discovery to production.
