Our Planet with Anthony Mugo

  What has morphed into a trade war between the United States and China, resulting in imposition of punitive sanctions against China by the US has resulted in other democracies getting involved, concerned that escalation on this front might be a threat to all democratic societies and not just the US. Keen to counteract restriction of access to Rare Earth Elements (REES), the mining and processing of which is near monopoly for China, foreign affairs heads of the US, Australia, India and Japan issued a joint statement on 1st July 2025 Washington expressing their trepidation about the possibility of restriction and disruptions of global supply chains for REEs among other fears. On REEs, the Statement noted: “We are deeply concerned about the abrupt constriction and future reliability of key supply chains, specifically for critical minerals. This includes the use of non-market policies and practices for critical minerals, certain derivative products, and mineral processing technology...

  A new debate has emerged about technologies that have become popular as the preferred pathways towards enabling countries to enhance climate change mitigation initiatives. It is emerging that these technologies, particularly electrification using renewable energy sources, and the expanding influence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) pose serious threats to the same environment they are seeking to protect. AI data centres have become some of the largest consumers of electric power, potentially surpassing global manufacturing. A new report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) has predicted that the annual energy demand by AI data centres will be slightly more than that which is used by Japan over the same period by 2030. Data centre’s demand for energy is principally driven by the need for cooling of servers and other computing accessories. Due to increasing demand for tools such as Chat GPT, data servers are increasing their data processing capacity and hence requiring more ...