As soon as the driver of our uazik, a Soviet-era off-roading vehicle, stops in the middle of the steppe for the third time, I know it: We are lost. Together with my guide, Soyolo Baljinnyum, they take out a large paper map with well-worn corners, tracing roads with fingers stiffened in the cold. If the 24-hour flight from Chicago hadn’t already instilled a sense of distance, it sinks in now. I’m far from home.

Earlier in the day, we’d left Ulaanbaatar, an ever-growing metropolis where monasteries coexist with megamalls and residential highrises. Nearly half of Mongolia’s 3.3 million residents live in the capital; more arrive every year, driven away from their nomadic herder lifestyles in part by the changing climate. (Drier pastures in summer make animals more vulnerable to harsher winter conditions, and livestock losses are often irrecoverable for many families.)

But as soon as we exit the city, we’re in a different place. Mongolia has one of the lowest population densities on the planet, and I feel the rush of excitement. I’m finally seeing the terrain I’d dreamed about for so long. We drive across the wind- and snow-swept landscape for hours without encountering another vehicle or human.

An uazik, in the middle of (seemingly) nowhere.

The Land of the Eternal Blue Sky, as the country is often called, stretches on both sides of the road. Herds of horses roam freely and shaman statues laden with cartons of milk and stacks of cookies — offerings to the spirits — punctuate our journey. We stop at several of these ancient signposts and ask the spirits for a safe passage: in order to continue our trip north, we’re about to get into the dangerous off-roads.

I’ve tapped Baljinnyum, owner-operator of Adventure Rider Mongolia, to take me to Lake Khuvsgul, Mongolia’s deepest lake, on the border with Russia, where a festival of ice takes place every spring. To get there, we zigzag across northern Mongolia’s grasslands and steppes, taiga forests and rolling hills, and I relish the opportunity to see this kaleidoscope of landscapes (despite the heavily bumpy drive).

As we stop to let a flock of sheep cross the barely visible dust road, I think of the wild ride Mongolia has been on over the recent decades. The country was transformed in the 1990s when the socialist system gave way to a rapidly growing market economy.

Coal, copper, oil and gold mining fuelled the run, and while it lifted many out of poverty, it introduced challenges: environmental concerns, reliance on volatile global commodity prices, and an overdependence on resources that have a tendency to … run out. The government recently announced plans to diversify away from mining in the new decade, making tour operators like Baljinnyum hopeful.

I step outside the uazik to stretch my legs and watch the last sun rays disappear behind the nearby hill. As soon as they do, the temperature drops sharply and the incessant wind of the steppes picks up. “We are lost,” Baljinnyum tells me, echoing my own instincts. And even though I don’t see another soul around, he continues, “We’ll have to spend the night here.”

The spirits must be looking over us: A few minutes later, a stranger approaches from afar and, after a short exchange with Baljinnyum, gestures to follow him. Our uazik turns the corner and we arrive at a modest family settlement: two solar-powered gers huddled together amid the flat, treeless land.

Before we enter one of the gers, Baljinnyum explains the rules of engagement. “Once inside, step to the left — that’s the area for the guests; the host always sits on the right. Please be polite and accept whatever is offered to you.” In our case, it’s tobacco snuff passed around in a jade green bottle and a cup of suutei tsai, a buttered, salty milk tea that soothes my joints after a daylong tumble of a ride.

Later, I leave the ger for a second and pause in awe. The dusk sky has turned a shade of violet I’ve never seen in my nearly four-decade-long peripatetic life. There’s no light pollution and the early stars are sparkling on the horizon. The silence feels so unfamiliar, I wonder if there’s anyone else left in the world.

At dinner, we’re treated to horse meat dumplings, a rare delicacy from a recent Lunar New Year celebration. A few motorbikes whiz up to the gers outside. As we pass around shots of homemade vodka, more people crowd in to welcome us, the visitors. To me, this is the deeply binding part of travel that’s vanishing from our world: finding oneself at the mercy of strangers and their kindness on the road.

After the morning’s breakfast of tsai and sizzling hot noodle soup, we bid our goodbyes outside. The two generations of Mongolian nomads — mother and father, their son and daughter-in-law — wave until I can no longer see them in my rearview mirror. We keep due north and eventually arrive at Lake Khuvsgul for the festivities, but the unexpected night in the steppe is the singular gift I won’t soon forget.

Mongolia has ambitious plans to receive 1 million visitors a year in the near future, and while this goal has been paused with the pandemic, the country is gearing up for a travel boom when borders can safely reopen. A new airport south of Ulaanbaatar, for example, will triple existing capacity. With the tourism infrastructure set to grow, impromptu encounters in the wild may become far more fleeting. As Mongolia opens up to the rest of the world, I quietly hope its adventurous essence will stay intact.

On May 30, Sunday, Mongolian citizen voters residing in foreign countries began casting their ballot for the Mongolian presidential election ahead of the polling day inside the country.

The early voting for the 2021 presidential election is taking place between May 30 and 31 at 45 diplomatic missions of Mongolia in 30 countries around the world. A total of 7,394 are registered to vote for the election at appropriate Mongolian embassies, resident missions and consulates.

Mongolians inside the home country are scheduled to vote on June 9, Wednesday. Three candidates - U. Khurelsukh from the Mongolian People’s Party, S. Erdene from the Democratic Party and D. Enkhbat from the Right Person Electorate Coalition - are vying for the presidency.

Oil and gas giant Total will be rebranded as TotalEnergies as it shifts some of its focus towards renewable energy sources.

Shareholders voted overwhelmingly in favour of the move and approved the firm's environmental goals.

"We want to become a sort of green energy major," said chief executive Patrick Pouyanné.

Big energy firms are coming under increasing pressure to adjust to a lower-carbon world.

On Wednesday, a small hedge fund investor succeeded in ousting two board members at Exxon in the US, in a bid to alter the firm's direction on climate change.

And a court in the Netherlands ordered Royal Dutch Shell to cut its emissions more quickly than the Anglo-Dutch oil firm had planned.

Shell ordered to cut emissions in key court ruling

Global ban on new gas boilers from 2025 proposed

Total, the world's fourth-largest privately-owned oil and gas producer, is aiming to reach carbon neutrality by 2050, in part by investing in more solar and wind power projects.

While several small investors opposed the company's plans at the annual general meeting, arguing they did not go far enough, the resolution was passed with more than 90% of the vote.

European energy firms have moved more quickly than their US counterparts to begin the transition away from fossil fuels, said Mike Coffin, senior analyst in oil and gas at financial think tank Carbon Tracker.

"Total we see in the upper tier, ranking alongside BP, but below Eni," he said. "They don't fulfil all our hallmarks of Paris [climate treaty] compliance, but above Shell and certainly above the North American companies."

In February, announcing the planned rebranding, Mr Pouyanné said the new name would symbolise Total's "new commitment to be a leader in a world with more energies and fewer emissions".

He said the company would have to go through "a genuine transformation" to meet its net zero target by 2050.

Climate targets

The International Energy Agency surprised the energy market this month with a report suggesting fossil fuel production needed to slow down much more quickly than firms were planning for.

The IEA said there could be no new investment in fossil fuel projects after this year, if the world wanted to reach net zero carbon emissions by the middle of the century.

Carbon Tracker says global energy firms and state-owned producers have fossil fuel reserves on their books that will have to be left unexploited, if the world is to have any chance of meeting its carbon emissions targets.

Hedge funds, as well as large investors like Blackrock and pension funds, were beginning to recognise that failing to adjust plans in the light of climate targets represented a financial risk to companies they invest in, Mr Coffin said.

"From an environmental perspective, we want these fossil fuels to stay in the ground - they're unburnable carbon," he said.

"From an investment perspective, you don't want to sanction them because you're wasting your capital. You won't see the historic returns we've seen from oil and gas because of the slowdown in demand."

Hong Kong/London (CNN Business)The hackers behind one of the worst data breaches ever to hit the US government have launched a new global cyberattack on more than 150 government agencies, think tanks and other organizations, according to Microsoft.

The group, which Microsoft calls "Nobelium," targeted 3,000 email accounts at various organizations this week — most of which were in the United States, the company said in a blog post Thursday.

It believes the hackers are part of the same Russian group behind last year's devastating attack on SolarWinds — a software vendor — that targeted at least nine US federal agencies and 100 companies.

Biden signs cybersecurity executive order, though rules wouldn't have applied to Colonial Pipeline

Biden signs cybersecurity executive order, though rules wouldn't have applied to Colonial Pipeline

Cybersecurity has been a major focus for the US government following the revelations that hackers had put malicious code into a tool published by SolarWinds. A ransomware attack that shut down one of America's most important pieces of energy infrastructure — the Colonial Pipeline — earlier this month has only heightened the sense of alarm. That attack was carried out by a criminal group originating in Russia, according to the FBI.

Microsoft (MSFT) said that at least a quarter of the targets of this week's attacks were involved in international development, humanitarian, and human rights work, across at least 24 countries. It said Nobelium launched the attack by gaining access to a Constant Contact email marketing account used by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

"These attacks appear to be a continuation of multiple efforts by Nobelium to target government agencies involved in foreign policy as part of intelligence gathering efforts," the company said.

According to Microsoft, the latest campaign began in late January and was discovered in February. The hackers honed their techniques throughout March, April and early May before "significantly" escalating their attacks on May 25, when they used Constant Contact to "target around 3,000 individual accounts across more than 150 organizations." The hackers custom-tailored their attacks to each target, in an apparent effort to reduce the chances of being detected.

USAID acting spokesperson Pooja Jhunjhunwala said Friday that the agency was aware of "potentially malicious email activity" from a compromised Constant Contact marketing account. A forensic investigation into the incident is ongoing, added Jhunjhunwala.

The White House's National Security Council and the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) are both aware of the incident, according to spokespeople. CISA is "working with the FBI and USAID to better understand the extent of the compromise and assist potential victims," a spokesperson said.

By gaining access to USAID's account, the hackers were able to send out phishing emails that Microsoft said "looked authentic but included a link that, when clicked, inserted a malicious file" that allowed the hackers to access computers through a backdoor.

"This backdoor could enable a wide range of activities from stealing data to infecting other computers on a network," Microsoft said.

One of the fake emails that appeared to originate from USAID included an authentic sender address. The email posed as a "special alert" that invited recipients to click on a link to "view documents" from former President Donald Trump on election fraud.

Microsoft said that many of the attacks were blocked automatically. The company is notifying customers who were targeted, and said it has "no reason to believe these attacks involve any exploit against or vulnerability in Microsoft's products or services."

A spokesperson for Constant Contact said the company is "aware that the account credentials of one of our customers were compromised," describing it as an "isolated" incident. "We have temporarily disabled the impacted accounts while we work in cooperation with our customer, who is working with law enforcement," the spokesperson added.

At the time of the SolarWinds hack, US intelligence and law enforcement agencies said the group responsible "likely originated in Russia," adding that the attack was believed to be an act of espionage.

Microsoft reiterated those suspected motivations in its Thursday blog post, saying that "when coupled with the attack on SolarWinds, it's clear that part of Nobelium's playbook is to gain access to trusted technology providers and infect their customers."

"By piggybacking on software updates and now mass email providers, Nobelium increases the chances of collateral damage in espionage operations and undermines trust in the technology ecosystem," the company said.

The fake USAID emails were not the only ways that the hackers sought to compromise their targets in the campaign, according to Mandiant, a cybersecurity firm that had also been tracking the same suspected Russian activity.

The attackers "leveraged a variety of lures, including diplomatic notes and invitations from embassies," said John Hultquist, VP of analysis at Mandiant Threat Intelligence. "All of these operations have focused on government, think tanks, and related organizations that are traditionally targeted by [Russian foreign intelligence] operations."

The latest disclosure shows how Russia has been undeterred by recent US efforts to hold the Kremlin accountable and bolster cybersecurity following the SolarWinds campaign, said James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"The Russians have a campaign plan for massive attacks against US targets, for which they have no incentive to stop," Lewis said. "They aren't afraid of the US response. They are testing the new administration."

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday refused to comment on the specifics of Microsoft's allegations.

"To answer your question we first need to answer the following: which groups? Why are they linked to Russia? Who attacked what? What did this lead to? What was the attack itself? And how does Microsoft know about it? If all of these questions are answered, we can think about the response [to your question]," Peskov told CNN in a conference call with journalists.

He added that he didn't think the allegations would affect the upcoming summit between US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

ULAANBATAR, Mongolia – This March, as Mongolian herder Batsaikhan Enkhee tended to his sheep, the sky suddenly darkened. The wind picked up, filling his shoes and shirt with coarse, heavy sand. A massive sandstorm had engulfed the Mongolian grasslands.

"It was dark like the night," Batsaikhanm, 53, told NPR. "I thought I would die."

The herder huddled with his sheep as airborne dirt blocked out the sun. His brother found him the next day, buried in the sand, and dug him out. He survived, but 200 of his sheep died in the storm, about one-fifth of his herd.

Sheep weren't the only casualty. Nine Mongolian herders perished on the steppes in what has been the worst sandstorm season in both Mongolia and China in a decade.

The cloud of sand then blew its way over the course of the next day into Beijing, more than 600 miles away. There, the sky suddenly turned a garish yellow. The air quickly filled with plumes of coarse grit, basting cars and balconies a dusty brown.

Beijing has historically been beset by springtime gales bringing sand in from the Gobi, a vast swath of desert and craggy rock that runs between China and Mongolia. Decades of reforestation efforts along China's northern border had reduced the sandstorm frequency.

Until this year.

A combination of extreme weather, climate change and environmental degradation have created the perfect storm – or rather, a series of eight cross-border sandstorms through March, April and May that have destroyed animal herds, exacerbated respiratory problems and cancelled flights in both Mongolia and China. The news video below captures the magnitude of this year's storms.

The result has been catastrophic in Chinese and Mongolian regions bordering the Gobi. In northern China, tourists found themselves trapped by pelting wind. Air pollution levels skyrocketed to more than 20 times the healthy limit. Southern Mongolia was hit particularly hard; successive sandstorms have killed an estimated 1.6 million livestock, which many herders depend on for income.

"Even the rescue teams could not even go forward because it was so dark during the [March] storm," says Jargalsaikhan Sonomdash, the governor of the southern Mongolian county of Airag, where 3,600 animals died after they were buried by sand drifts.

Mongolian climate experts say an unusually dry year for precipitation created huge amounts of loose sand. "Almost no snow fell last winter, and some provinces had no rain last summer," says Dulamsuren Daskhuu, a senior researcher at Mongolia's Meteorology and Environmental Monitoring Research Institute, a ministry.

The Gobi desert is also growing bigger. Desertification is creeping up into northern Mongolia at an average rate of 75 miles a year, according to Dulamsuren's institute.Part of the reason is climate change.

Temperatures in Mongolia have increased about 4 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 70 years, according to the Mongolian Ministry of Environment, about twice the rate of the recorded global average increase.

Pollution from widespread mining of gold, coal, and copper has also speeded up desertification. It's stripped vegetation and led lakes and streams to dry up.

Another big factor in promoting sandstorms is overgrazing. The number of Mongolian livestock animals has nearly tripled in the last 30 years, according toMongolia's national statistics office. The number of goats has grown the fastest, from 5 million heads to 27 million heads. Mongolian goats produce an estimated 40% of the world's cashmere. They also eat twice the amount of grass that sheep do, destroying pastureland at an unsustainable rate.

"If no measures are taken now, Mongolian will be all desert in 30 to 40 years," says Dulamsuren. "There will be many more sandstorms in the future."

Not all the sand is coming from Mongolia however. Satellite imagery show that the sandstorms that coated China later in the spring season, during April and May, largely originated from northern Chinese provinces like Ningxia, Gansu and Inner Mongolia. This winter, the average ground temperature there also remained 10 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit higher than usual, says Liu Junyan, a Beijing-based researcher at Greenpeace. That caused faster evaporation, less water retention, and more dry sand.

"China's northwestern and northern areas always experience annual sandstorms as a natural phenomenon," says Liu. "Just because people did not pay attention to the storms does not mean the storms stopped existing."

In March, the extra sand was then picked up by seasonal winds given an extra boost by La Nina, a cyclical weather phenomenon where the Pacific Ocean cools and which can also lead to an uptick in hurricanes and less rainfall.

Since 1978, China has had a sandstorm battle plan, planting an estimated 66 billion trees along the country's border with Gobi Desert – a phalanx of vegetation nicknamed "the Great Green Wall." It is intended to anchor loose dirt and prevent small sandstorms from picking up speed. But such was force of this year's storms that loose sand was propelled hundreds of yards up into the air, hurling it well above the line of trees meant to hold back such incursions.

In China's capital of Beijing, residents huddle indoors each time the air outside becomes too hazardous to breath due to sandstorms. But for those living closer to the Gobi, the increased rate of sandstorms is a matter of life and death.

This past March, as dust ominously began to cloud the skies in Mongolia's southern Dornogovi province, herder Nyamsambuu Myadagmaa, 43, and several other herders shepherded some of their sheep and goats into a barn for safety.

But the sandstorm lasted 20 hours – the longest on record – and dumped so much sand on the barn that its roof caved in, killing the animals inside. Animals that had been left outside were literally buried alive.

"Many of us found our animals that were killed in the steppe because they were stuck in sand and only their ears or head were left poking out," Mydagmaa remembers. The survivors had been blinded by the scouring sand.

By Khaliun Bayartsogt

Amy Cheng contributed research from Beijing.

On May 30, President of Mongolia Khaltmaagiin Battulga delivered a speech to the 2021 P4G Summit taking place in Seoul, the Republic of Korea.

“Distinguished Delegates,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

At the outset, I wish to extend my sincere appreciation to the Government of the Republic of Korea for organizing this summit in these difficult times when every country in the world is fighting with the pandemic.

Over the past several years, we negotiated too many times and pledged ambitious goals to combat climate change, reduce environmental degradation and conserve the nature. Unfortunately, the implementation and concrete results are extremely unsatisfactory.

Mongolia is one of the most affected and vulnerable countries by the climate change. The frequency of natural hazards doubled in the last two decades and their economic impacts are increasing.

We must limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius in order to prevent natural disasters and damages resulting from the climate change. This is the basic and most effective way to protect our planet. Every country pledged to define and implement its national goal to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions with the framework of the Paris Agreement. For Mongolia, we increased our initial commitment from 22.7 percent to 27.2 percent by 2030.

Dear delegates,

There is an urgent need to intensify the transition to environment friendly green technologies through public-private partnerships.

For this reason, shortly after my election as the President of Mongolia I made a concrete proposal to establish and implement a “North East Asian Super Grid” renewable energy project, which is one of the green technologies, during the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Russia.

The Mongolian Gobi Desert, which sees 270 sunny and clear days per year, is the world’s second largest solar energy source after the Sahara Desert. We have a big potential to use this abundant source to generate electricity, reduce peak demand for electricity in countries such as South Korea and also store electricity using seasonal and time zone differences.

The renewable energy network is the most optimal and economic solution for protecting the environment.

Time and climate change will not wait us. We call on all countries to take decisive, effective and concrete actions to transform our economic recoveries after the pandemic into the environment friendly “green” model and start to fulfill our commitments made before the international community while every country is overcoming the pandemic with less damage.

Thank you for the attention."

Source: The Office of the President of Mongolia

The regular meeting of the cabinet was held on May 27. At the meeting, the government reviewed its plan to reopen its borders on June 1, 2021.

The Cabinet Secretariat’s Press Office has reported that citizens of Mongolia will not be required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 once the country’s borders are open. However, people of foreign citizenship must be fully immunized against coronavirus to be allowed for entry to Mongolia.

At today’s cabinet session, Prime Minister L.Oyun-Erdene gave orders to corresponding ministers to elaborate on this matter further and present the issue of border reopening to a future cabinet meeting.

US fintech giant PayPal has announced it’s planning to allow users to withdraw cryptocurrency holdings on its platform and move them to third-party wallets.

“We want to make it as open as possible, and we want to give choice to our consumers – something that will let them pay in any way they want to pay,” Jose Fernandez da Ponte, Paypal’s general manager of blockchain, crypto and digital currencies, said on Wednesday at CoinDesk’s Consensus 2021 conference.

The California-based company opened its platform to digital currencies in October, but users had not been allowed to withdraw cryptocurrency to third-party wallets.

“They want to bring their crypto to us so they can use it in commerce, and we want them to be able to take the crypto they acquired with us and take it to the destination of their choice,” da Ponte said.

Da Ponte didn’t specify a timeframe, but noted that new developments on the PayPal platform are common about every two months on average.

Cryptocurrencies have attracted substantial funds from big investors over the past year. The inflows triggered massive rallies in the price of most virtual assets, pushing the global crypto market cap to $2 trillion.

Canada’s Ivanhoe Mines (TSX: IVN) has begun producing copper concentrate at its Kamoa-Kakula project in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) months ahead of schedule as the metal continues to trade close to all-time highs.

Kakula, the first mine planned at the concession, is initially forecast to generate 3.8 million tonnes of ore a year at an average feed grade “well in excess of 6% copper” over the first five years of operation, the company said.

Ivanhoe and partner Zijin Mining said first ore was introduced into the concentrator plant on May 20 to perform initial hot commissioning tests on the ball mills and other processing equipment.

As of May 25, 5% to 6% of copper ore was being conveyed directly from Kakula’s underground mining operations to the run-of-mine stockpile and the concentrator.

The country’s President, Felix Tshisekedi, said it was a clear sign that the country was open for business and investment. Ivanhoe’s co-chairperson Robert Friedland described first production from Kamoa-Kakula as a “historic moment” for Ivanhoe and the DRC.

“Discovering and delivering a copper province of this scale, grade and outstanding ESG credentials, ahead of schedule and on budget, is a unicorn in the copper mining business,” Friedland said in a separate statement.

The mining veteran noted that while the exploration journey started well over two decades ago, the Kakula deposit was discovered a little over five years ago. “This is remarkable progress by the mining industry’s glacial standards from first drill hole to a new major mining operation,” he said.

Kicking off production at Kamoa is indeed a momentous event for the copper market. Most of the current top producing mines are decades old and, except rare exceptions such as SolGold’s Cascabel in Ecuador and Anglo American’s Quellaveco project in Peru, there haven’t been major new discoveries in years.

While copper projects are in the pipeline, producers are wary of repeating oversupply mistakes of past cycles by speeding up plans at a time when mines are getting a lot trickier and pricier to build — one reason why copper prices are near decade highs at above $4 per pound.

The copper industry needs to spend upwards of $100 billion to close what could be an annual supply deficit of 4.7 million metric tonnes by 2030, according to estimates from CRU Group. The potential shortfall could reach 10 million tonnes if no mines get built, commodities trader Trafigura has said.

Friedland, who made his fortune from the Voisey’s Bay nickel project in Canada in the 1990s, has been working on Kamoa-Kakula for ten years.

World’s no.2, and the greenest

Operations at Kamoa-Kakula are set to ramp up this year to reach between 80,000 and 95,000 tonnes of copper in concentrate. After several phases of expansion, the mine’s peak annual copper production will be more than 800,000 tonnes.

Friedland believes the project will become the world’s second-largest copper mine and also the one with the highest grades among major operations. The concentrator is slated to produce concentrate grading around 57% copper.

The Vancouver-based company has also vowed to produce the industry’s “greenest” copper, as it works to become the first net-zero operational carbon emitter among the world’s top-tier copper producers. Friedland has not set a target date for achieving that goal.

Expansion in sight

Given the current copper price environment, Ivanhoe and Zijin are exploring expanding production capacity from the current 7.6 Mtpa capacity (to be implemented in two phases of 3.8 Mtpa) to 11.4 Mtpa. This may be achieved by adding output from other targets in the concession — Kansoko, Kamoa North (including the Bonanza Zone) and Kakula West.

Kamoa-Kakula is a strategic partnership between Ivanhoe Mines (39.6%), Zijin Mining Group (39.6%), Crystal River Global Limited (0.8%) and the DRC government (20%).

Shares in Ivanhoe shot up on the news, trading 3.4% higher at C$9.31 a piece in Toronto early morning. So far this year, the stock has climbed almost 25%.

BMO Metals Andrew Mikitchook said Wednesday’s news was an important milestone for Ivanhoe shareholders. “We expect further revaluation of the shares as the mine ramps up over the next months and the Phase 2 expansion (remains ahead of schedule) is delivered by Q3 2022,” he said.

Looking ahead, Mikitchook said investors would watch for three Kakula-Kamoa milestones: ongoing monthly operational updates, 2021 costs guidance, and updates on copper concentrate offtake arrangements.

After barring the use and trading of cryptocurrency, Beijing has indicated that it will turn next to cryptocurrency mining.

China’s vice-premier Liu He last Friday said the government would clamp down on bitcoin mining and trading to achieve financial stability but stopped short of revealing specific policies. This week, Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region in northern China, issued draft guidelines on its plans to ban crypto mining, offering the first details about how authorities intend to execute this latest stage of the crypto crackdown.

Under the rules, big data centers and cloud computing firms will see preferential policies from the government withdrawn, while telecommunication companies, internet firms, and even cyber cafes will have their business license revoked or operation suspended if the entities are found to have engaged with crypto mining, according to a notice (link in Chinese) from Inner Mongolia’s Development and Reform Commission. Additionally, companies or individuals that are found to have used cryptocurrency to conduct money laundering will be handed over to the judicial authorities, while government employees who have either participated or facilitated the practice will face scrutiny from the country’s anti-corruption agencies.

Inner Mongolia’s draft rules will be open for public comment until June 1, and the guidelines could set a precedent for other bitcoin mining hubs in China, such as Xinjiang, which accounts for some 20% of global bitcoin mining.

“There is the chance that other provinces and regions, and especially Sichuan and Xinjiang, will not take as hard a line as Inner Mongolia appears to be, but again given the attention from Beijing I would be surprised if they do not follow suit,” Bill Bishop, a veteran China analyst, wrote in his newsletter Sinocism.

A renewed crackdown on cryptocurrency

China banned the trading of cryptocurrencies in 2017, but so far the “mining” of the assets, a process whereby people use enormous power-hungry computers to solve algorithmic puzzles and in return get rewarded with the virtual currencies, has been tolerated. As of April last year, around 65% of the global average monthly bitcoin mining capacity, or hashrate, was based in China due to its cheap electricity, according to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, an online tool developed by the British university. Xinjiang accounted for over half, or 36% of this computational power in the country, raising ethical concerns due to Beijing’s alleged human rights abuses in the region. Inner Mongolia ranked third after Sichuan province and Xinjiang, accounted for around 8% of such capacity.

But amid bitcoin’s wild price swings in recent weeks, partly the result of Elon Musk’s see-saw stances on it, Beijing seems to be worried about the potential financial risks cryptocurrencies could pose. In addition to Liu’s remark, Beijing last week reiterated its opposition to crypto, banning banking and payment service providers from offering crypto-related transactions. At the same time, however, the country has been testing a digital yuan, part of the government’s broader plans to deploy advanced tech in a state-controlled way.

Another motivation for Beijing to curb crypto comes from its need to reduce emissions. Bitcoin mining is highly carbon-intensive, with the energy consumption of the virtual currency estimated to be greater than all the power consumption by Italy in 2016, according to a recent study published by Nature Communications. In addition, according to Bloomberg, it’s possible the cryptomining industry has spurred more demand for coal, and led to illegal coal mining.

Looking for alternatives to China

Already, some China-based bitcoin miners and those producing equipment for them have said they might shift their business to places outside China, including Kazhakstan, Canada, and the US, where electricity is also cheap and the policies towards crypto are more friendly than in China.

Miners including HashCow and BTC.TOP have halted part or all of their operations in China after Liu’s remark, while some Chinese crypto mining machine makers have also been eying markets outside China, according to Reuters.

Overall, China’s crackdown on crypto could prompt the “de-China-isation” of the industry, with such a trend first seen in crypto trading and now coming to computing power, according to Wang Juan, associate professor on blockchain at Xi’an Jiaotong University, told the the South China Morning Post.

In a sign of that, China’s overall share of hashrate dropped from 76% in September 2019 to 65% in April last year, according to crypto research firm Arcane Research.