Critical minerals are a key emergent sector–with the life cycle impacting downstream innovation in climate tech, AI, medical devices, and others. However, the critical minerals sector as is suffers from a lack of reliability, equity, and sustainability–which impacts both ECJ and decarbonization goals. This project, in collaboration with Environmental Defense Fund–examined the landscape of the global critical minerals sector with stakeholder interviews and document analysis, and made policy recommendations towards advancing reliability, equity, and sustainability in the sector. My team’s findings from this study were shared at Climate Week 2024 and COP29.