Diversified miner Rio Tinto has said the mining industry would have to convince naysayers that increased mining activity would be required to meet net-zero targets.

Speaking at the company’s annual general meeting in Perth, Rio chairperson Dominic Barton pointed to International Energy Agency figures which estimated that some 700-million tonnes of copper would be needed over the next 20 years, and that the world’s installed wind power capacity had to reach over 6000 GW by 2025, highlighting the need for additional steel, copper, aluminium and rare earths.

“We have a critical role to play in enabling the energy transition, supplying essential minerals, including copper, lithium, high-grade iron-ore and aluminium, all of which are vital for the transition to a low-carbon economy.

“However, within our new purpose – finding better ways to provide the materials the world needs – there also lies a fundamental tension. Meeting the needs of both the energy transition and continued global growth raises environmental and societal dilemmas. As a business and as a society, we need to acknowledge and balance these dilemmas in our decision-making as they involve some difficult trade-offs,” Barton said.

Energy Transition He told shareholders that the big question would be how Rio would fulfil its role in the energy transition in a way that would be socially and environmentally responsible, yet sufficiently commercial in order to attract the investment required.

“What I can say is that in meetings I have conducted with investors, governments, community leaders and other stakeholders since joining, there is an ever-increasing acknowledgment that mining is viewed as a critical industry in reliably and securely supplying the materials that the world needs for the energy transition.

“So, the industry is at an inflection point: we can be a catalyst of the green economy and potentially of transformative social impacts as we get to the unexplored corners of the world through mining, processing and recycling,” he said.