Daniele La Porta: “I see Chile as an important partner and an important hub for innovation”

The Senior Mining Specialist, from  the Energy and Extractives Global practice with the World Bank visited Santiago to participate in the closing event of Cesco Week 2019, “Mining and Climate Change: where are we heading?”, where she presented the Climate-Smart Mining Facility initiative. In her speech, the specialist highlighted the key role that the mining industry can play in the combat against global warming and the strategies the World Bank is willing to sponsor in order to achieve this goal.

2019’s Cesco Week had a strong focus on the challenges that Climate Change is placing on the society, economy and mining industry in particular, with many discussion around the subject along the week and a closing event centered entirely in this matter: the Seminar “Mining and Climate Change; where are we heading”, where a keynote presentation was delivered by Daniele La Porta, Senior Mining Specialist, Energy and Extractives with the World Bank.

The specialist gave a deep insight of the Climate-Smart Mining Facility, a multi-year program providing both technical assistance and opportunities for leveraging financing to support resource-rich client countries in developing their strategic mineral reserves while adopting CSM practices. During this presentation, La Porta focused on the key importance of the minerals in a low-carbon future, how mineral-intensive are clean technologies and why does it matter for developing countries and emerging economies.

About this initiative, the state of Chilean mining in this regard and the challenges to implement these practices around the globe, we spoke with Daniele La Porta.     

What do you want to achieve with Climate Smart Mining Facility?

The Climate Smart Mining Facility is really a platform to bring together the industry and the governments, to actually make the objectives of the Climate Smart Mining a reality. That means decarbonizing and minimizing the material, footprint along the mineral value chain, all the minerals necessary for the clean energy transition.

What are the opportunities for Chile with this program?

I see Chile as an important partner and an important hub for innovation. There is a lot going on; I think that among all of the mining countries, Chile is doing a lot to be climate-smart already. So for us will be an opportunity to learn from the Chilean experience, and see how can we also support further that Chile really becomes a climate-smart mining country.

Which barriers do you see in implementing Climate-Smart Mining globally?

The barriers are many, there are many challenges. I would say mostly it’s to be more forward looking and not as reactive. The mining sector globally is slow sometimes in making the changes that are needed but we see that is changing, but the real challenge is that it can’t change alone. There is a need for multi-Stakeholder partnerships. . Another is having the right framework in place in some countries, which is also one of the key challenges for making climate-smart mining a reality.

Which country is a good example on implementing a more smart-climate mining activity?

Chile, absolutely! You guys are doing a lot of work on the innovation, so I would consider Chile one of the main climate-smart mining countries. But we see a lot of innovation elsewhere, for example in Australia and Canada.

What would you like to achieve in the next 5 years?

In the next five years, which is the initial duration of the Climate-Smart Mining Facility, we have many objectives in terms of what we mean with a successful implementation of this program. One is to help ensure that the industry and governments have a better understanding on what needs to be done in order to green mineral supply chains for the clean energy transition. Another important objective is to advance our knowledge on the recycling we can be very successful already, because there is a lot of need in doing recycling better and is also a priority for many of the countries that have shown interest in the Climate-Smart Mining Facility. Another goal is how can we incentive the innovation and how we disseminate the innovation and research in developing countries. That for us would be three key areas for success.