This summer’s wildfires and water shortages are one story, not two, Devan Pillay, President of Heavy Industries, Schneider Electric, writes. As reservoirs shrink and heat records fall across three continents, the same drought is quietly closing in on something few people are watching: the mines that produce the copper, lithium and cobalt the energy transition depends on.
It’s an uncomfortable irony. The clean energy transition runs on copper – every EV, wind turbine, solar farm and transmission line depends on it, with global demand forecast to jump 50% by 2040, driven by electrification, AI and the renewables build-out. The UN has warned that failing to close the supply gap could stall the shift to clean energy altogether.
But most of that copper, along with the lithium and cobalt the transition also needs, sits in the same drought-stricken regions dominating today’s news cycle. The crisis on the front page and the crisis underground share a single cause.
The numbers make the overlap hard to ignore:
- Over half of today’s lithium and cobalt production comes from water-stressed areas;
- 30-50% of global copper, gold, iron ore and zinc production sits in high water-stress regions – roughly $150 billion of annual revenue at risk;
- 80% of Chile’s copper is mined in extremely water-stressed conditions today. By 2040, that hits 100%; and
- Nearly six in 10 community conflicts around mine sites are rooted in disputes over water.
This isn’t a future risk. It’s happening now, in the same heatwaves and droughts filling front pages.
And the constraint is not geology – roughly 980 Mt of copper remain in the ground. It’s getting it out fast enough, in a world where water is running short, ore grades are falling, and new mines take 15 to 20 years to reach production. Half of global reserves sit in just five countries, adding a geopolitical fragility the energy system can’t absorb.
I started my career in a mine and spent most of my working life across Africa, home to much of the world’s mineral wealth. I’ve seen what this industry can do when conditions are right. What’s missing isn’t capability. It’s the policy urgency to match the scale of the problem.
Three things need to happen, together, now. Permitting has to speed up without gutting environmental standards – several countries are already proving this is possible. Recycling has to become central, not incidental: at Schneider Electric we’re working with Glencore and Li-Cycle on battery and copper recovery, but the whole industry needs the same shift in mindset. And supply chains need to diversify, spreading risk while building economic opportunity in resource-rich nations.
None of these fixes the problem alone. Together, they might.
Every heatwave headline this summer is also a mining headline. We’re just not reading it that way yet. The energy transition will not stall for lack of ambition. It will stall for lack of water -and the copper that depends on it.
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