2022年8月，拜登政府推出了《通胀削减法》，该法系美国史上规模最大的气候法，计划在新能源和气候变化项目投入3690亿美元，为一系列绿色工业产品提供补贴和税收优惠。Rio Tinto CEO Stausholm urged Western governments to take more action and accelerate the transition to clean energy; he called on Western governments to learn from China's industrial policies.
Finance Associated Press September 30th (Editor Xia Junxiong) Local time on Monday (September 30th), mining giant Rio Tinto CEO Stausholm urged Western governments to take more action and accelerate the transition to clean energy, calling on Western governments to learn from China's industrial policies.
Stausholm said on Monday at the London Metal Exchange opening ceremony that the US 'Inflation Reduction Act' has not had any significant impact on manufacturing output.
In August 2022, the Biden administration launched the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest climate law in U.S. history, planning to invest 369 billion dollars in new energy and climate change projects, providing subsidies and tax incentives for a series of green industrial products.
However, a survey showed that in the first year after the introduction of the 'Inflation Reduction Act', 40% of large-scale manufacturing investments announced have been delayed or suspended.
This has affected mining and smelting companies such as Rio Tinto, BHP Group Ltd, Teck Resources, and American Aluminum, which originally hoped to benefit more from Western support for domestic manufacturing.
Stausholm pointed out that the closure of aluminum smelters, and the important role of aluminum in the energy transition, is a typical example of Western policies failing to achieve their goals.
"Decades of globalization have brought an unexpected consequence, which is the decline of Western manufacturing. Take aluminum production as an example, in the past 20 years, Western smelting capacity has sharply declined."
According to statistics cited by Stoeshelm, since the beginning of this century, the aluminum smelting capacity in the USA has decreased by 77%, and in Europe by 22%, mainly due to high energy costs and a substantial increase in China's smelting capacity.
For Rio Tinto, the speed of global energy transition has a significant impact on the company's performance. Rio Tinto has a network of aluminum smelters, as well as being a large producer of copper and iron ore.
Energy transition will become the main driving force for the demand for metals such as copper, aluminum, and lithium, because achieving energy transition requires the massive construction of power grids and infrastructure, involving a large amount of copper, aluminum, and lithium and other metals.
"Progress in electrification in most regions of the world is not fast enough. In the USA and Europe, electricity production has hardly increased," Stoeshelm said.
He added, "Although it is still too early to determine the results of policies such as the Inflation Reduction Act, we have not yet seen any significant output growth. There is currently not enough evidence to suggest that the re-industrialization in the West has firmly taken hold."
Stoeshelm suggests that Western countries can learn from China's experience, including industrial scaling, rapid delivery, and a supply chain closely integrated with supporting infrastructure.