Net Zero is Not Possible Without Africa’s Transition Minerals

What is net zero? Put simply, net zero means cutting greenhouse gas emissions to as close to zero as possible, with any remaining emissions re-absorbed from the atmosphere, by oceans and forests for instance.

The transition to a net-zero economy and the subsequent appetite for electric vehicles, wind turbines, solar panels and new electricity connections will require huge quantities of energy transition minerals (International Energy Agency, IEA, 2021; World Bank, 2017). These include copper, nickel, aluminium, cobalt, and lithium, as well as the ‘rare earth’ elements neodymium, praseodymium and dysprosium

Though clean energy and decarbonizing international investment and finance seem to be dominating the development discussion, what is less talked about is the minerals, including rare earth minerals, metals and construction materials needed for this to happen.

A new World Bank Group report (2020) reported that the production of minerals such as graphite, lithium and cobalt, could increase by nearly 500% by 2050 to meet the growing demand for clean energy technologies.

It is projected that over 3 billion tons of minerals and metals will be required to deploy wind, solar and geothermal power, as well as energy storage, required for achieving a below 2°C future. The mineral intensity is such that even if the recycling rate for copper and aluminium is 100%, recycling and reuse will still not meet the steep demand.

For the world to transit from fossil fuels minerals like lithium and cobalt are essential elements in batteries that can facilitate this development. The continent of Africa is a store house of such vital minerals. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) produces over 70% of global cobalt. Together with Zambia these two counties produce 10% of the world’s copper while Mozambique and South Africa have largest reserves of graphite, platinum metals, lithium and more. Countries such as Zimbabwe and Namibia also have among the largest reserves of lithium globally.

This is an obvious economic opportunity for both domestic and global from the world green mineral growth. This also could pose a significant impact on the continent natural resources by the excessive extraction of these minerals to meet global demands. These countries should not be negatively impacted from resource curse and plunged into unnecessary poverty and environmental degradation. For example, like any other mining or developmental operations, the minerals developing the clean energy transition come with social and environmental costs and surprisingly have their own carbon footprint, from extraction to end use. Land-based mining is moving into more remote, ecologically and biodiversity- sensitive areas such as wildlife areas and can lead deforestation, relocation of local communities, creation of mountains of often toxic waste and pollution of freshwater ecosystems.

Furthermore, lithium-rich nations could explore the local manufacture of lithium-ion batteries to tap into local, regional, and global electric vehicle and solar industry markets. At the same time, they can contribute to meeting their national targets stated in their Nationally Determined Contribution (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement on climate change.

It is therefore important the continent adapt an economic development model that reduces environmental, climate and disaster risks.

At the centre of a green recovery is the clean energy transition to drive economies, which involves the adoption of technologies that reduce emissions such as wind and solar energy and less of fossil fuel-based technologies such as those derived from coal.

The world is about to see a revolution in the transport sector as many nations and evolving organisations both global and regional fronts are enacting new legislations and guidance on the transition to Electric Vehicles. Electric Vehicles propose an alternative engine technology to internal combustion technology to reduce our reliance on fossil base fuels. The solution to decreasing our reliance on fossil fuel emissions depends on the production of Lithium-ion batteries, which use numerous minerals, most important of them are lithium and cobalt, manganese, nickel, aluminium, graphite, rare earth elements (REE), iron, copper, as well as phosphate. Though these minerals are relatively scarce, they are the core enablers of this transport revolution.

The Uk has part of its plan to meet Net Zero by 2050, it will ban the sale petrol and diesel vehicles by 2030. In June, the European Parliament voted to effectively ban the sale of new internal combustion engines by 2035. If this is approved by EU, the changes will revolutionize the world’s third-largest auto market after China and US and surge the world transformation of the complete automotive industry to battery technology.

The battery metals will take a significant economic role in the transportation sector like the primary role of the long influence of the oil, this will make it a challenge for developing nations with the important resources to keep their development paths from being adversely impacted by geopolitics.

No nation demonstrates This problem better than the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which controls the world’s largest known reserves of cobalt—a metal that is known as key to the green transition, not least because EV batteries produced with cobalt tend to allow longer driving distances between charges.

Democratic Republic of the Congo is roughly the size of Western Europe, and its large resources are in diverse ways key to the economic wealth of the continent of Africa. Any nation with the plan to extract Congo’s mineral wealth would have to overcome the challenges holding back the continent. Its large size, practically landlocked position at the centre of Africa and poor access to advance infrastructure, any strategic development of Congo’s resources would affect the neighbouring countries and set an example, good and bad globally.

A key concern is cross-border infrastructure such as railways and accessibility to seaports. This is not just a requirement for bringing battery resources to market. The lack of cross-border infrastructure in much of Africa also means that efforts to integrate the continent’s economies have never really been successful though the African Continental Free Trade Area, created in 2018, is the world’s largest free trade zone, at least on paper, encompassing 43 states. Here, China is far ahead, with rail and port infrastructure funded and built by Chinese entities transforming African logistics. In 2019, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies estimated that 46 sub-Saharan African ports were built, expanded, or operated by Chinese entities.

While the top brass at COP is surely too busy to catch a movie, the return of the Black Panther should remind them that African mining is highly relevant to their goals: buried in the soil of the host continent are the metals critical to moving away from humanity’s reliance on fossil fuels.

To attract investors, developing countries need to develop strong environmental, social, and governance values, regulation and standards that protect communities, and the environment. Developing countries will also have to plan and invest strategically to decarbonize their production and ensure their competitiveness in a low-carbon economy. But decarbonization of the value chain is also expected to reshape mineral supply chains and create new opportunities for value addition through processing and manufacturing.

"The world is changing; consumers are changing. The consumers of future [renewable] technologies at the forefront want responsibly produced products," said Demetrios Papathanasiou, World Bank Global Director for Energy and Extractives, at Mining Indaba 2022. "This means that all inputs, whether mineral, plant, or a service input, need to be responsibly supplied," he concluded.

Ref:

1. Lithium-Cobalt Value Chain Analysis for Mineral Based Industrialization in Africa | African Development Bank - Building today, a better Africa tomorrow (afdb.org)
2. Green Energy's Dirty Secret: Its Hunger for African Resources (foreignpolicy.com)
3. The role of extractives in Africa’s inclusive green and resilient recovery | Climate Promise (undp.org)
4. Climate-Smart Mining: Minerals for Climate Action (worldbank.org)
5. Mineral-Rich Developing Countries Can Drive a Net-Zero Future (worldbank.org)
6. World Bank Document

By Philip Kyeremanteng