Historical Mineral Dependence and Carbon-Intensity Co-Movement with Industrial-Metal Market Conditions in Asian and Pacific Economies

Abstract

The low-carbon transition is increasingly mineral-intensive, raising the question of whether industrial-metal market conditions coincide with different carbon-intensity adjustments across inherited mineral structures. We examine 45 Asian and Pacific economies over 2005–2022 (756 economy-year observations), combining a real aluminium–copper–nickel–tin–zinc price index with predetermined mineral dependence measured from 1995–2004 non-fuel mineral rents. Economy and year fixed-effects estimates indicate a positive exposure gradient: across the interquartile exposure difference, a one-standard-deviation larger annual metal-price movement is associated with a 0.00577-log-point (0.58%) differential in annual carbon-intensity change. Design-aware inference is weaker than conventional economy-clustered inference (economy-CR2/Satterthwaite p = 0.0571; exact circular-shift p = 0.0556). The accounting decomposition yields point estimates of 0.0097 for primary-energy intensity and 0.0012 for CO2 per unit of primary energy, although their difference is not statistically distinguished under CR2 inference. Allowing world industrial activity and oil-price movements to separate mineral dependence slopes reduces the focal coefficient to 0.00448 (p = 0.474), and identifying support is concentrated among materially mineral-dependent economies. The evidence documents a bounded exposure-conditioned association embedded in the wider industrial and commodity cycle. For planning, the findings support assessing energy demand, efficiency, and the carbon characteristics of supporting energy supply alongside mineral development decisions.