Africa – key continent for the energy transition

The world energy transition is deemed indispensable to the fight against global warming and the shaping of a sustainable energy future for coming generations. For about the past decade, the topic has been unavoidable in political and public debates in countries of the North and South. Africa figures in those debates as a continent that embodies the solution by virtue of its exceptional biodiversity, which leaves no doubt about its key role as a global carbon sink. Africa has been integral to these debates also by virtue of its subsoil, which holds deposits of the various transition minerals (copper, cobalt, lithium, nickel, coltan and tantalum) that the world needs for manufacturing electric vehicle batteries, storing renewable energies, and for the innovative technologies that are key to the global energy transition. According to the International Energy Agency, demand for these minerals will grow 4 to 6 times by 2040.

Yet there is still an open question regarding the fate of the continent that produces and supplies these strategic raw materials. Will Africa serve yet again as a mere cash cow, or will this energy transition process pave the way for its emergence?
 

History repeating itself

Let me recall that thanks to its population and natural resources, Africa has always been at the heart of the major transformations that have led to the industrialisation of nations, and this at a very high cost. One such cost was the slave trade, in which Africans were forcibly put on ships, transported under inhumane conditions, and sold in America to work on sugar or cotton plantations. Another example is rubber, which was used to make the inflatable tyres that revolutionised the entire automobile industry. Its extraction, however, left painful memories behind in the producing African countries. We will never forget the physical violence (severing of hands, kidnapping of women and children) meted out in the Congo by King Leopold II of Belgium to compel the people to extract more of this white gold, the sale of which served only to enrich the King himself and to develop his Kingdom of Belgium.

The industrial revolution of the 20th century was made possible thanks to the commodities supplied by Africa. Also worthy of mention is the uranium extracted in the south of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and used to manufacture the atomic bomb that helped to end the Second World War. Only very recently, in the development of modern-day information and communication technologies, Africa was again called upon to supply the raw materials, especially coltan, which is used in the manufacture of telephones and notebooks.

Paradoxically, Africa is at the bottom of the hierarchy. Its sons and daughters are being forced to become wanderers in search of an El Dorado. They are dying in the desert and at sea, under the complicit and culpable gaze of those who have the means to save them but refuse to do so under the pretext that they would be creating a pull factor.
 

Today, Africa is again being called upon. It is showing up as it has always done for every rendezvous with history that has marked the industrialisation of nations. And yet again, it is playing the role of a continent with the solution – this time serving as a carbon sink to counteract global warming, and as the supplier of raw materials indispensable to the energy transition.

Yet, while previous industrial revolutions have helped to develop Western countries and improve their people’s quality of life, Africa’s lot has been bloodshed and painful memories. One example is the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which, for thirty years now has been witnessing a war of depopulation and repopulation in its eastern region, where gigantic transition mineral mines are located. Although the country does not possess a single weapons factory, this armed conflict has already claimed millions of lives and spawned hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people and refugees. The large-scale rape of women and children is legion and is being used as a weapon of war to drive people out of towns and villages, forcing them to abandon their lands which are then immediately captured for mineral mining. 

On the back of exponential growth in the demand for these minerals, we are now witnessing predatory and illicit practices in their extraction: child labour is being used in mines, armed conflicts are being deliberately provoked, and agreements are being signed with no transparency whatsoever, not just by multinational corporations but also by governments. Let us take the example of the agreement signed in February 2024 between the European Union and Rwanda on the sale of critical raw materials. It was signed just as that country had invaded its neighbour the DRC, and in full awareness on the part of the EU that Rwanda possesses no mines for these metals and that the minerals it is putting up for sale on the international market are being plundered from the DRC.

Cobalt ore from the Shabara mines in the Congo, where thousands of people dig in the most adverse conditions in an area controlled by Glencore. © Pascal Maitre / Panos Pictures

A peace agreement between the DRC and Rwanda was just signed on 27 June in Washington, with the mediation of the Trump administration. This agreement was reached after negotiations between American and Congolese authorities on the exploitation of rare raw materials, and is in line with President Trump's philosophy of exchanging peace for strategic minerals. It is the businessman's administration – President Trump has stated his readiness to end Rwanda's aggression against its neighbour the DRC, provided the latter cooperates with the United States in exploiting its mineral resources. It is now clear that this agreement, so much vaunted by Donald Trump, is really nothing other than the opening of the doors to the United States, thereby granting it access to minerals indispensable to world technology.

The inevitable outcome of such an agreement will be peace without food security and the outbreak of a conflict between the great powers on African soil. This is even more likely as the multinationals that would be coming to the Congo are motivated by profit maximisation and would accordingly extract and take the products away for processing in their respective countries. They are not interested either in creating stable employment or in sustainable extraction practices. We cannot rule out the possibility that this accord could eventually trigger a war on Congolese soil between the great powers, more specifically the European Union and the United States of America, risking a repeat of the situation that arose around 1997 in Congo Brazzaville. That country’s democratically elected government was overthrown because President Lissouba had signed oil mining agreements with American companies, to the detriment of French companies that had long been present there. Those companies lost no time in re-arming former President Sassou-Nguesso in order to overthrow Pascal Lissouba. The ensuing war claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and spawned hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons and refugees, and was subsequently described as an ethnic war.

Besides the aforementioned agreements, there was also the railway construction megaproject initiated by the United States and supported by the EU, designed to link the Democratic Republic of the Congo with Zambia, and to end in Angola’s Port of Lobito. It was inaugurated in Angola by former US President Joe Biden in his final days in office, and is intended to shorten the time needed to transport raw materials. Such a project takes us back to those launched during the colonial era, when roads and railways were built not to open up and develop colonies, but to link mineral mining areas or regions with the seas and oceans for easier transportation of raw materials to the metropolis.
 

Young Africans, who watch day by day as thousands of containers laden with these riches leave the continent for distant places (Europe, United States, Canada, China…), are calling for thoroughgoing reforms. Such reforms must end predatory exploitation, so that these minerals no longer constitute a curse, but instead bring them happiness and a zest for life. 

In particular, the benefits derived from strategic reserves of transition minerals should be maximised for the good of the extracting countries so as to improve their citizens’ standard of living and mitigate the negative impacts of mineral mining.

Holding companies accountable

To this end, it is high time to activate and encourage the rigorous and bold implementation of the various international policies that have been lying dormant in drawers. These include the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct, and the guiding principles of the UN Secretary-General's Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals.

Support for undertakings like the Responsible Business Initiative in Switzerland goes without saying. The success of such initiatives depends, among other things, on raising public awareness and adequately informing citizens about the human tragedies and the environmental degradation being caused by the mining industry in Africa. Such actions could support the ongoing and unrelenting struggle of civil society across African countries to advocate for greater societal and environmental responsibility on the part of companies operating in the industry. 

These multinational corporations are in a position of strength, especially when it comes to the conclusion of mining contracts – often opaque and unknown to local communities. They use their position to bypass the rights of citizens and the fundamental rules of mining. They conduct their mining activities in a manner that overlooks the elementary rules of public health and fails to respect the rights of the local people. They are therefore the root cause of the air pollution and toxic water contamination that are giving rise to pathologies often unknown to the population, but which are lethal and are helping to exacerbate the public health crisis. 

African societies are still waiting for countries in the North to acknowledge the role being played by Africa. This role deserves climate funding and compensation for the part that African peoples are being required to play in environmental preservation. If the energy transition is to be fair and equitable, then it would be fair to apply the polluter pays principle, not that of the polluted pays.