Rising copper prices fuel a wave of metal theft — and everyone pays the cost

The value of copper is rising, and with it an unwelcome side effect: a surge in theft. Across many regions, criminals are stripping the metal from phone poles, streetlights, and even EV charging stations — and the costs land on everyone else.

Copper sits at the heart of the clean-energy transition. Demand from electric vehicles, renewables, and power networks is expected to lift copper's clean-energy share dramatically by 2030, while the broader market grows at a healthy compound rate.

A metal too valuable to leave unguarded

The economics are simple and corrosive. As prices climb, the incentive to steal accessible copper grows, while the cost of repairing vandalised infrastructure — darkened streets, severed communications, disabled chargers — far exceeds the scrap value the thieves obtain.

Utilities and municipalities are responding with hardened enclosures, tracking technologies, and tougher penalties, but the underlying driver — a structurally tight copper market — is unlikely to ease soon.

The clean-energy paradox

There is a deeper irony here. The same metal essential to decarbonisation is becoming a target precisely because the world needs so much of it. Managing that tension — securing supply while protecting public infrastructure — is emerging as a quiet but consequential policy challenge.