Saleem Ali

• PhD
• Professor at University of Delaware

A policy pioneer’s memoir shows how climate science penetrated the defense sector

Rising global demand for minerals to support continued economic development and the Green Transition is expanding areas of extraction across the planet. While mineral extraction often necessitates substantial transformation of the immediate landscape, whether these activities contribute to positive outcomes for the local communities and minimize na...

A journalist probes tensions surrounding two minerals that are key to green technologies

The international research community has been attracted to the concept of a “water-energy-food” nexus as an approach for more integrated planning for global environmental change. The Sustainable Development Goals may well be approached using such a nexus approach for data gathering and for holistic policy implementation. This chapter considers how...

As seen in the recent war in Ukraine and earlier wars and crises within the past decade in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Venezuela the management of migration remains urgent, complex and sensitive policy question. The recent floods in Pakistan have also demonstrated how internal displacement from natural disasters can cause acute resource str...

In the indigenous communities in China’s Guizhou Province, people are struggling to balance tradition with modernisation. As fires have long plagued these villages, post-disaster reconstruction has intensified the tradition/modernity tension and left people with a complex dilemma: should traditional wooden houses be restored, or should one, instead...

The term ‘biodiversity,’ while casually used in practice, is a complicated subject to measure, interpret, contextualize, and compare. Yet the possible advent of deep-sea mining in the mid-2020’s compels us to compare potential impacts of biodiversity loss across ecologically distant realms, a formidable task. Supplying the world’s green infrastruct...

In the context of natural resource degradation, migration can act as means of adaptation both for those leaving and those supported by remittances. Migration can also result from an inability to adapt in-situ, with people forced to move, sometimes to situations of worse or of the same exposure to environmental threats. The deleterious impacts of re...

Extractive industries have caused immense social and environmental impact and yet remain the foundation of modern society. Minerals are the ultimate raw materials for human needs from fertilizers for food production to metals for infrastructure. Increasingly, minerals are also necessary for green technologies needed for climate change mitigation an...

Agricultural large-scale land acquisitions have been linked with enhanced deforestation and land use change. Yet the extent to which transnational agricultural large-scale land acquisitions (TALSLAs) contribute to-or merely correlate with-deforestation, and the expected biodiversity impacts of the intended land use changes across ecosystems, remain...

Connections between resources and migration operate as a complex adaptive system rather than being premised in linear, causal mechanisms. The systems thinking advocated within this Element increases the inclusion of socio-psychological, financial, demographic, environmental and political dimensions that mediate resource-(im)mobility pathways. The E...

Significant amounts of feedstock metals will be required to build the infrastructure for the green energy transition. It is currently estimated, however, that the world may be facing an "infrastructure gap" that could prevent us from meeting United Nations Sustainable Development Goal targets. Prior investigations have focused on the extractive asp...

How does natural order in the universe connect to social and political order on Earth? Pragmatically, answering such a fundamental question is key for society to confront global environmental and economic challenges. Earthly Order tackles this grand question of human inquiry for a broad audience through coverage of foundational knowledge for scient...

Research conducted over the last four decades emphasizes the growing importance of Afghanistan's mineral resources as a potential driver for economic growth. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) estimates this fortune could be worth as much as $900 billion USD in key metals and materials essential for the energy transition. However, a protrac...

Non-technical summary. As we consider a transition to a low-carbon future, there is a need to examine the mineral needs for this transformation at a scale reminiscent of the Green Revolution. The efficiency gains of the agrarian transition came at ecological and social costs that should provide important lessons about future metal sourcing. We pres...

The Crimean Peninsula is not self-sufficient in terms of water. To ensure regional water security, in 1975, the North Crimean Canal was completed and began diverting water from the Dnieper River to the peninsula. After Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, the canal became transboundary and was blocked by Ukraine. Russia performed various projects to reme...

Considering how human societies evolve, the process of learning from errors is a key attribute that deserves attention. The work of Claude Shannon in building the bridge between the study of entropy in physics to information theory is a key way to consider how learning from such errors can be harnessed in human and artificial systems. Scott Page’s...

Starting with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, this chapter lays out how natural forms such as viruses acquire structure. What are the mechanisms by which ordered natural systems arise from chaotic assemblages? This chapter considers the quest for understanding the fundamental forces of nature by presenting the most current debates in the conte...

Going through the fundamentals of economic theory, this chapter moves on to a discussion of the Five Capitals Framework and its implications for applying value to ecosystems. The ideas of “weak” and “strong” sustainability are developed with examples from the natural resource and service sectors. Thomas Schelling’s seminal work in understanding the...

This chapter starts with a consideration of how social sciences fit within the complexity-uncertainty domain. Economic and social order is high in complexity and high in uncertainty, which necessitates a more deliberative process in its understanding. Urban systems offer a compelling microcosm by which to study and understand social and economic or...

Many major rivers discharge into the Black Sea and bring major nutrient pollution, leading to rapid plant growth and eutrophication impacts in the ecosystem. Yet, the Black Sea cannot replace the lost oxygen during this process due to its natural conditions, such as low salinity, low density, very limited connection to larger seas and oceans, and l...

The low-carbon energy transition is becoming a major driver of the global demand for metals. In particular, energy storage is an essential component of the global electrification trend, and it relies on the supply of battery metals. The International Energy Agency assesses that, in a scenario that meets the Paris Agreement goals, global installatio...

How does natural order in the universe connect to social and political order on Earth? Pragmatically, answering such a fundamental question is key for society to confront global environmental and economic challenges. Earthly Order tackles this grand question of human inquiry for a broad audience through coverage of foundational knowledge for scient...

Starting from the periodic table, this chapter lays out how humans have tried to order our understanding of the elements. There are many ways to categorize and label the elements depending on what factors we want to prioritize. The centrality of carbon as the life-giving molecule is considered on the basis of its particular proclivity for construct...

Natural systems on Earth operate in cycles as a way of maintaining a steady state of functionality. Modern environmentalism has developed with a desire for human activities to emulate such circularity. Going back to Barry Commoner’s classic work The Closing Circle and his four laws of ecology, this chapter considers the development of the Biosphere...

How do political borders arise, and what should be their role in an increasingly globalized world? While there is clearly a concern about the role of country borders in dissecting ecosystems, borders can also provide resilience in times of crisis by containing flows of harmful products, or indeed pathogens, as has been the case with the COVID-19 pa...

Across the globe, the livelihood of millions of people relies on the recovery and sale of valuable materials previously discarded as waste. In developed countries, this is mainly incorporated into the official recycling and resources recovery sector, while in developing countries the informal waste picking activities often make a major contribution...

Pressures on natural resources, such as from environmental change, have influenced the global human mobility landscape. In this article, we review the scientific evidence on the interlinkages between natural resources, human migration and sustainability. Drawing on a review of the existing literature in combination with the authors’ research experi...

Many major rivers discharge into the Black Sea and bring major nutrient pollution, leading to rapid plant growth and eutrophication impacts in the ecosystem. Yet, the Black Sea cannot replace the lost oxygen during this process due to its natural conditions, such as low salinity, low density, very limited connection to larger seas and oceans, and l...

Solar geoengineering is gaining prominence in climate change debates as an issue worth studying; for some it is even a potential future policy option. We argue here against this increasing normalization of solar geoengineering as a speculative part of the climate policy portfolio. We contend, in particular, that solar geoengineering at planetary sc...

To meet UN Sustainable Development goals, a clean-energy transition with minimal ecological impact from its raw-material supply chain is essential. Polymetallic nodules lying unattached on the abyssal seafloor of the Pacific Ocean's Clarion Clipperton Zone contain four critical metals (nickel, cobalt, manganese, copper) in large quantities, and the...

This report reviews 14 circular economy interventions, with case studies of successful implementation that illustrate the effectiveness of the circular economy in delivering climate change mitigation and other environmental objectives – for example, clean water and healthy soils, forests, and marine ecosystems – as well as socioeconomic co-benefits...

Traditional mineral resource availability assessment methods always have strong assumptions and limitations on application. Both the physical mechanism of the Hubbert model and the economic mechanism of the Hotelling model can evaluate only specific dimensions of the availability of mineral resources. Therefore, we propose a hybrid model that could...

A science writer’s ode to patterns packs a visual punch.

Industrial disasters are a test of human and ecological resilience and offer a complex set of choices for restorative activity after their occurrence. Unlike natural calamities, industrial disasters have greater human agency associated with their prevention and remediation. In this paper, we analyze two major disasters that occurred within a period...

The ongoing agrarian transition from small-holder farming to large-scale commercial agriculture is reshaping systems of production and human well-being in many regions. A fundamental part of this global transition is manifested in large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) by agribusinesses. Its energy implications, however, remain poorly understood. He...

Non-technical summary Urban density is erroneously regarded as the main factor in the spread of COVID-19 in cities. A review of extant literature and findings from our case study of Karachi, Pakistan indicate that inequalities in income, healthcare, and living conditions play a key role in the spread of contagions along with government responsivene...

The scale and scope of the COVID-19 pandemic has been unprecedented with lockdowns and closed borders impacting consumer demand and trade – and hence material flows. Global financial markets are suffering a major shock and exhibiting immense volatility. Metal prices have experienced a V-shaped change with sudden crash in some cases followed by rapi...

Material flow has been accelerated from underground natural minerals and is accumulating as aboveground waste stock. China is not only the largest producer and consumer of material-driven products, but also the largest generator of product waste. No official annual product waste data are released for China, which creates challenges especially in li...

Traditional mineral resource availability assessment methods always have strong assumptions and limitations on application. Both the physical mechanism of the Hubbert model and the economic mechanism of the cumulative availability curve (CAC) can only evaluate the specific dimensions of the availability of mineral resources. So, we propose a hybrid...

According to the 2020 Climate Change Performance Index, Australia was ranked as the worst-performing country on climate change policy. The country has an ambivalent record of climate policy development as well as implementation, and has been criticized for its inaction. This paper considers why the country has been locked in climate policy “paralys...

Interest groups and state-level political inertia have stalled many of America's clean energy initiatives

Non-timber forest products have often been held out as potential tools for conservation and sustainable development, but sustainability assessments are frequently difficult and time-consuming, especially in conflict areas. Thus, rapid assessments can be useful in providing a broad overview of the harvesting system in order to generate meaningful co...

Anthropogenic mineral is absorbing wide concern in the context of circular economy, but its generation mechanism and quantity from product to waste remain unclear. Here we consider three product groups, 30 products, and use the revised Weibull lifespan model to map the generation of anthropogenic mineral and 23 types of the capsulated materials by...

This United Nations (UNEP) International Resource Panel Report provides a detailed insight into the global mineral resources industry, it sustainability performance and the many efforts undertaken to foster its sustainability. It advocates for mining activities to become subject to a sustainable development license to operate and provides policy-re...

The climate change impacts of mining are often not fully accounted for, although the environmental impact of mineral extraction more generally is widely studied. Copper mining can serve as a case study to analyse the measurable pathways by which mining contributes to climate change through direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions. For example,...

Policy coordination is needed for global supply chains

Entrepreneurship for green energy provision in Pakistan is direly needed to ensure universal access to energy, diffusion of renewable energy, and improving energy efficiency. Pakistan’s per capita electricity consumption is less than 467 kWh, which is very low compared to other countries in the region. Employing the green technologies is already cr...

Abstract To address future challenges of planetary decision-making on key ecological and social issues in an increasingly nationalistic world, we propose a new global governance model of technocratic ascendancy that can be integrated with quasi-democratic norms. Our model proposes the creation of a series of self-organized “Hybrid Leadership Assemb...

Coal phase-out is an integral part of the ongoing energy transition to a decarbonized economy. Any such process involves diverse actors that compete over the nature and pace of such transition. This research uses the Advocacy Coalition Framework to analyze the conditions of policy change within an adversarial subsystem. It focuses on the coal subsy...

Signed in December 2015 by 194 countries, the Paris Climate Agreement laid a very encouraging foundation for global attempts to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. While this was an important step for the global community, much work remains to be done. Based on climate change and technology scenarios developed by the International...

Demand-side material efficiency potentials are elaborated for housing and cars, showing that increased material efficiency can reduce annual emissions from the construction and operations of buildings and the manufacturing and use of passenger vehicles, thus contributing a couple of gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent in emission reductions to th...

This study explores the adaptive governance and effective implementation of climate policies at the subnational level in a developing country context. We focused on Pakistan as our central case as it is considered one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change and has also gone through a recent governance devolution process. This study is c...

This chapter provides a critical overview of extant literature on energy politics in the Asia-Pacific region and proposes a future research agenda for the field. It argues that traditional, security-centric analyses of energy issues in Asia have been complemented in recent years by a small but growing body of literature that addresses environmental...

An increasingly large quantity of primary mineral resource is being converted into manufactured products and destined for solid waste disposal. This material can be reclassified as “anthropogenic mineral reserves” and be a potential source of metals for a range of manufacturing uses. China is implementing a range of policy interventions which can l...

Nighttime light data are often used to estimate some socioeconomic indicators, such as energy consumption, GDP, population, etc. However, whether there is a causal relationship between them needs further study. In this paper, we propose a causal-effect inference method to test whether nighttime light data are suitable for estimating socioeconomic i...

The resolution in 1998 of the armed conflict between Peru and Ecuador through environmental peace-building negotiations, creating a transboundary conservation area, have been heralded as an exemplar of how ecological factors can foster collaboration between adversaries (Ali SH, Peace parks: conservation and conflict resolution. The MIT Press, Cambr...

Due to historical grievances, Armenia and Turkey experience severe international conflicts and do not maintain diplomatic ties. Yet, as a vestige of the Soviet period, when Armenia was not an independent country, both nations share the Arpacay/Akhuryan Dam, and riparian cooperation exists at the local level. We observed that local cross-border wate...

This study contributes to explore local responses to deal with the impacts of climate change on agriculture sector by looking the case of Punjab, Pakistan. Pakistan's agriculture is facing severe challenges due to the negative consequences of climate change. In this study, we investigate (a) What are the different initiatives taken at planned and a...

Gemstone value is often associated with origin, as the color, clarity, carat weight, cut, and other attributes of interest to consumers are often associated with the geological location of the stone. In this paper, we consider how the provenance of gemstones is harnessed through the ‘4P’ framework of product, price, promotion, and place. Both tanza...

As one quarter of global energy use serves the production of materials, the more efficient use of these materials presents a significant opportunity for the mitigation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. With the renewed interest of policy makers in the circular economy, material efficiency (ME) strategies such as light-weighting and downsizing of a...

This paper critically examines the social dynamics of emerald mining in the Swat Valley and its impact on the broader gemstone processing sector in Pakistan. In particular, it pays attention to problematizing the existing structure of artisanal, small-scale emerald mining, and its fragmented supply chain that grapples with a branding stigma of gem...

World Heritage sites provide a key mechanism for protecting areas of universal importance. However, fifty-four UNESCO sites are currently listed as "In Danger", with 40% of these located in the Middle East. Since 2010 alone, thirty new sites were identified as under risk globally. We combined big-data and remote sensing to examine whether they can...

Mining poses serious and highly specific threats to biodiversity. However, mining can also be a means for financing alternative livelihood paths that, over the long-term, may prevent biodiversity loss. Complex and controversial issues associated with mining and biodiversity conservation are often simplified within a narrow frame oriented towards th...

China is an important country for the storage, import, production and consumption of tin ore and is an exporter of refined tin. Since 2002, China has engaged in the export quota management of both tin and tin products. In January 2017, the Chinese government officially abolished quotas and tariffs for the export of refined tin. In this paper, we pr...

Pollution and the economy seem to have been inextricably linked throughout human history. Yet the relationship between environmental harm and economic development is complex and its understanding has been fragmented by disciplinary biases. Economists and environmental scientists have diverged on the urgency of abatement mechanisms and the marginal...

Multilateral cooperation on hydroelectric dams in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) basin has been suggested by a number of academic studies as an economically viable and environmentally friendly solution to the chronic energy insecurity of South Asian countries. Despite recent efforts to rejuvenate subregional cooperation on hydroelectric projec...

In this paper, we use a qualitative reflexive approach to understand the dynamics of Chinese migrant perceptions of Africans upon arrival in Africa and the changes in their views upon returning to China. The research is based on in-depth, semi-structured field interviews with Chinese workers and managers in Mozambique and South Africa, as well as i...

This paper questions the drive towards more ecologically determined porosity across national borders in the context of incongruent economic regulation and incentives. The push towards regionalization and less austere border conditions have socio‐ecological salience and deserve consideration. However, mining creates human and financial capital flows...

This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book explores the value of Africa’s mineral fortune from a diverse range of perspectives and disciplines. It has brought together environmental and political scientists, economists and geographers, geologists and mining engineers...

In this empirically grounded perspective, we explore how, if managed correctly, mining might go beyond a straight conversion of finite natural capital to financial resources. We suggest a process where mineral extraction could act as a catalyst for more diversified growth and even serve as a basis to restore forms of 'natural capital' it had previo...