Rio Tinto warned that its efforts to move its Australian iron ore operations away from fossil fuels are likely to be constrained by the slow roll-out of new renewable energy sources. The mining major also declined to set scope three emissions targets for its downstream steel mills customers.

At its recent AGM, Rio Tinto looked to put climate change at the heart of its new strategy and vision for the mining industry. While producing many of the critical materials essential to building out new renewable energy technologies, including copper, lithium, iron ore and aluminium, the company cited the slow roll-out of green energy as a major limitation to its own efforts to move away from the use of fossil fuels. Ambitions to move Rio’s Pilbara iron ore to green sources of energy require the plentiful availability of renewable energy and green hydrogen.

Rio also refused to set quantifiable targets for their scope three emissions – the indirect emissions that occur in a company’s value chain. While noting that it has some control and influence over its suppliers and their carbon emissions, the major miner stated it had much less control over its customers and their emissions. Decarbonisation of the steel and aluminium industries is essential for a timely transition to net zero, but setting out a harmonized approach between government, miners and producers is so far proving elusive.