Natural Resources

Climate policy is increasingly reshaping the conditions under which firms participate in international markets. As some jurisdictions introduce carbon border adjustments, lifecycle emissions standards, and supply-chain traceability requirements, market access is starting to be made conditional on verifiable characteristics of production processes, such as carbon intensity, embedded emissions, and input sourcing, rather than solely on product characteristics or prices. This paper exa ...

We are now in the fifth week since the U.S. airstrike that killed top leaders of the Iranian regime, initiating a war involving the United States and Israel against the country. More than a month of mutual bombardments between Iran and Israel has ensued, extending to other Persian Gulf nations, U.S. military installations—and even Cyprus. From a global perspective, the impact has stemmed primarily from disruptions to regional production of goods and the blockade of the Strait of Hor ...

Sur les marchés mondiaux de matières premières, l’année 2025 s’est inscrite dans le sillage de 2024 : une hausse record des cours des métaux précieux dans le contexte d’incertitudes, toujours plus marquées, et des métaux de base dont la performance a, une fois encore, été largement déterminée par les niveaux de l’offre minière. Du côté des ‘’ softs’’, cacao et café se sont repliés après les records de prix passés, tandis que le marché des céréales a connu une relative stab ...

On the global commodities markets, 2025 largely followed the trajectory set in 2024, with a record rise in precious metals prices against a backdrop of ever-increasing uncertainty, and base metals whose performance was once again largely determined by mining supply levels. On the softs side, cocoa and coffee retreated from past record prices, while the cereals market experienced relative price stability between 2024 and 2025, against a backdrop of abundant harvests worldwide. Oil an ...

This Opinion was originally published on ispionline.it Morocco’s food strategy, once centered on self-sufficiency, now faces climate stress, water scarcity, and global volatility, demanding a resilient and sustainable food system fit for new realities. ...

Après plus de sept années de sécheresse, le Maroc a connu durant l’hiver 2025–2026 des précipitations exceptionnellement abondantes, témoignant d’une variabilité hydrique de plus en plus marquée. Cette alternance rapide entre déficit chronique et excès ponctuels révèle le paradoxe hydrique national : un système historiquement centré sur la rareté doit désormais gérer des épisodes extrêmes concentrés et intenses.Les infrastructures hydrauliques ont limité les impacts humains et écono ...

After more than seven years of drought, Morocco experienced exceptionally abundant rainfall during the winter of 2025-2026, reflecting increasingly marked water variability. This rapid alternation between chronic deficits and occasional excesses reveals the country's water paradox: a system historically centered on scarcity must now manage concentrated and intense extreme episodes.Hydraulic infrastructures helped limit human and economic impacts and ensured significant replenishment ...

L’arrestation du président vénézuélien Nicolàs Maduro a suscité la sidération internationale en interrogeant sur le respect du droit international ; puis, fort logiquement, cette opération a conduit à maintes analyses tant sur les arguments politiques, sécuritaires et géostratégiques avancés par Washington que sur les ambitions sous-jacentes ayant présidé à cette décision sans réel précédent dans l’histoire récente. Outre la lutte contre le narcotrafic, c’est bien évidemment la ...

The arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolàs Maduro caused international astonishment, raising questions about respect for international law. And, quite logically, the operation led to numerous analyses, both of the political, security and geostrategic arguments put forward by Washington, and of the underlying ambitions behind this decision, which has no real precedent in recent history. In addition to the fight against narco-trafficking, it was of course the oil issue that came first ...

From the use of tariffs as a foreign policy instrument, to the weaponization of critical resources, and from targeted sanctions to attacks on critical infrastructure, economic security is at the forefront of international debates. The aggressive use of economic instruments for strategic purposes has become an explicit feature of international affairs, in a way not seen since the interwar period[1]. Beyond the weaponization of resources of all kinds, an increasing ‘monetization’ is u ...

L’impératif de sécurisation des approvisionnements en ressources minérales stratégiques est au cœur des politiques publiques de réindustrialisation nord-américaine et européenne. L’essentiel des efforts porte toutefois sur les métaux de l’électromobilité (lithium, cuivre, nickel, cobalt, manganèse, graphite) ou sur ceux indispensables à certaines hautes technologies (gallium, germanium, antimoine, etc.) et ayant fait l’objet de restrictions aux exportations de la Chine qui en est, s ...

This policy brief examines what the 2025–2026 period reveals about the future of global energy risk and the energy transition. After the shocks of 2021–2023, 2025 brought broad price easing: oil and coal prices declined as supply growth outpaced demand, and the World Bank projects further declines in the global energy price index in 2026, offering short-term relief for energy-importing economies. The brief argues, however, that the macroeconomic relevance of energy entering 202 ...

The U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean—the most significant since the Cuban Missile Crisis—comes at a moment when a new world order is taking shape, its contours still unclear, and in which the U.S. seeks to be more assertive in the Western Hemisphere. This disposition toward South America and the Caribbean was underscored by the recent publication of the new U.S. National Security Strategy, in which the Monroe Doctrine is explicitly invoked. This Policy Brief situates the devel ...

Le secteur minier traverse une période critique où convergent transition énergétique mondiale, recompositions des chaînes d'approvisionnement et ambitions nationales d'industrialisation. Le Maroc, pays doté d'un patrimoine minier diversifié incluant phosphate, cobalt, cuivre et autres minerais critiques, dispose d'un réel potentiel pour s'imposer comme acteur incontournable de la transition énergétique.Toutefois, l'absence de stratégie nationale dédiée, le manque de coordination int ...

Record après record, l’or ne semble pas vouloir arrêter sa marche en avant : le 8 octobre 2025, l’once a franchi un nouveau sommet sur le marché londonien, dépassant ainsi le seuil de 4 000 $ et s’affichant, deux semaines plus tard, à quelque 4 170 $ au fixing de l’après-midi. Si le monde des matières premières est coutumier de ces élans, l’ampleur de cette hausse ne peut manquer de surprendre. L’envolée est en effet considérable : le seuil de 2 000 $ l’once ...

Record after record, gold seems unstoppable: on October 8, 2025, the ounce surpassed a new high on the London market, exceeding the $4,000 mark and reaching around $4,170 at the afternoon fixing two weeks later. While such surges are not unusual in the commodities world, the scale of this increase is striking. The rise has indeed been remarkable: the $2,000-per-ounce threshold was first crossed in August 2020, and the $3,000 mark, once considered unreachable, was surpassed in March ...