Barton said the world isn’t just facing a shortage of minerals, but also a shortage of the capital required to dig new mines, which take far longer to develop than before. “The mining industry has reduced its investments significantly since the 2015-2016 period. We’re hundreds of billions of dollars below what we need.”

He said the industry needed to build trust, and had not done a great job in persuading the public of the vital role it will play in a global decarbonisation project that could require more copper in the next 25 years than has ever before been produced. He said the industry needed to do a better public relations job, adding that Rio itself had “caused our own problems” in 2020 after destroying rock shelters considered sacred by Aboriginal communities, a move Barton described as “terrible” and “embarrassing”.

Scott Clements, a partner at Tribeca Capital, said there were still enormous opportunities in the mining sector that could “generate phenomenal returns”. “The challenge for the industry is to be seen as part of the solution and not part of the problem,” he told the conference on Monday.