The Centre for Natural Resource Governance (CNRG), under the “Tackling Climate Change and Energy Transitions in Zimbabwe” (TaCCET-Zim), will on the 30th of January 2024 host an international conference on Africa’s transitional minerals and the search for shared benefits.
All is now set for this conference which will be held on Tuesday at a venue in Harare.
The planned conference aims to initiate a discussion and debate on the possibilities and avenues Africa can explore to harness the abundance of critical minerals and investigate how these resources can be used strategically to industrialize Africa whilst also contributing to global emissions reductions. In so doing, the conference also aims to lobby the governments and other stakeholders to think of models that ensure extraction of critical minerals is done in strict observance of labor, environmental, tax and related governance laws.
Rachel Jambo, the CNRG Climate Justice Coordinator told The Weekly that several key topics will be discussed, and the conference will bring together diverse experts on the topical Critical Minerals subject.
“The Conference aims to bring together Zimbabwe government experts, civil society, industry professionals, academics, legislators, lithium mining companies and workers representatives. Speakers from Chile, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Kingdom and the United States of America will participate virtually. The conference will focus on addressing the challenges associated with the rising demand for critical minerals for producer countries and exploring the opportunities thereof” said Jambo.
“The hybrid event will provide a platform for knowledge sharing, discussions, and collaboration for further research on how Africa can prevent the pitfalls of the resource curse associated with past mineral booms.,” added Jambo.
As the world pushes for a net zero emissions target by 2050, the global drive for a just energy transition has also intensified. The demand for cobalt, nickel, lithium, copper, chrome, manganese, graphite, aluminium and rare earths has increased as these are some of the essential minerals required for clean energy technology production. Many African countries are endowed with these minerals and as such, play a significant role in the just energy transition discourse.
The World Bank’s report ‘Minerals for Climate Action: The Mineral Intensity of the Clean Energy Transition ‘published in March 2020, indicated that the world will require over 3 billion tonnes of critical minerals and metals by 2050. The same report estimates that the production of cobalt and lithium will increase by 500% by 2050. The current surge in the search for critical minerals is not only driven by the usual supply and demand dynamics but also by the necessity of meeting universal climate change policy targets, especially the 2015 Paris Agreement and subsequent follow up actions.
With special reference to Zimbabwe, besides the operations in Bikita, the country has seen an influx of foreign investments in areas such as Mutoko, Shurugwi, Mberengwa, and Goromonzi as lithium reserves are being discovered and exploited. In 2022, the government instituted the Base Mineral Export Control Act which banned the export of raw lithium.
However, there is room for a more comprehensive framework for critical minerals which addresses the country’s own energy poverty, value addition and beneficiation, skills and technology transfer as well as local empowerment. Given the comparative advantage Zimbabwe has with its critical minerals, it is therefore imperative for a deeper understanding of the key stakeholders, their interests, and a relative consensus on how energy transition should be approached in Zimbabwe for a human-centred model of development.
The Conference will therefore target to bridge a gap and bring to light the geo-politics of the just energy transition and opportunities and contradictions in the critical minerals supply chains. This will in turn simplify the critical minerals global value chain and bring a shared understanding of the role of CSOs, Government, extractive industries and other stakeholders in critical minerals governance.
After the conference, a position paper lobbying for the development and implementation of a critical minerals framework will be drafted to enhance partnerships among various stakeholders for continuous engagement on critical minerals.