In 2011, the EU identified fourteen “critical raw materials.” By 2020, it had raised that number to thirty, in the process warning that “access to resources is a strategic security question for Europe’s ambition to deliver the Green Deal.” It noted that 95 percent of Europe’s rare earths, needed both for electric cars and wind turbines, comes from China. While 60 percent of Europe’s cobalt originates from mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, over 80 percent of what Europe actually imports is refined in China.
