Africa Is Central to the Green Energy Transition
The scale of Africa’s mineral contribution is significant. Africa holds a significant share of several critical mineral reserves, including more than half of global cobalt reserves, nearly half of manganese reserves, and more than one-fifth of natural graphite reserves. Three of the most critical inputs for lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles, grid storage, and renewable energy systems. Africa holds a significant share of several critical mineral reserves, including more than half of global cobalt reserves, nearly half of manganese reserves, and more than one-fifth of natural graphite reserves.
The Democratic Republic of Congo alone supplies nearly two-thirds of the world’s cobalt. Zimbabwe has emerged as one of the fastest-growing lithium producers on the continent. South Africa holds deep manganese deposits, and Mozambique and Madagascar rank among the top global sources of natural graphite. As the world scales up electric vehicles and renewable energy, that demand will be met, in significant part, from African ground.
So it is worth asking: if Africa is this central to the green economy, how can the continent ensure it shares meaningfully in the benefits?
The Real Costs Behind the Supply Chain
Behind every metric ton of cobalt is a community that lives with the realities of extraction. In the DRC, artisanal and small-scale mining (which accounts for 15 to 30 percent of Congolese cobalt production) has been linked to labour concerns, safety risks, and environmental contamination. Toxic byproducts including arsenic, lead, and cadmium can leach into rivers that communities depend on for drinking water and fishing.
In Zimbabwe, the lithium boom is bringing investment, but also raising concerns about land use, community relocation, and environmental oversight. Research and civil society reporting have documented cases in which communities near lithium projects say they faced displacement, limited consultation, or disruption to local livelihoods. At the same time, some projects have brought infrastructure investment, employment opportunities, and community development commitments. The challenge is ensuring that lithium development delivers long-term local benefits while protecting communities from avoidable harm.
These trade-offs are not unique to Africa, but they do raise important questions about how the global energy transition is governed. A Greenpeace Africa report released in 2025 noted that Africa’s critical minerals could drive development and climate justice, or risk entrenching a new “green resource curse” if governance and community protections remain weak. The outcome depends on the terms under which these resources are developed.
The Climate Finance Gap
The financial numbers tell an important story. According to the Climate Policy Initiative’s Landscape of Climate Finance in Africa 2024, climate finance flows to Africa totaled USD 44 billion in 2021/2022. That represents real progress, but it meets only 23 to 25 percent of the continent’s estimated needs to fulfill its climate commitments by 2030.
While private-sector clean energy investment in Africa has risen, public and development finance for African energy projects has fallen by roughly one-third over the past decade, to about $20 billion in 2024. Overall, Africa still receives a very small share of global clean energy investment.For adaptation finance specifically (the funding that helps communities build resilience through seawalls, drought-resistant crops, and early warning systems), Africa receives less than $14 billion per year against a need that Columbia University’s Climate School estimates at over $100 billion.
Bridging this gap is one of the defining equity challenges of the current decade.
Africa Is Warming Fastest, and Paying the Highest Price
The World Meteorological Organization’s 2024 State of Climate in Africa report found that 2024 was the warmest or second-warmest year on record for Africa, with North Africa warming at 1.28°C above the 1991-2020 baseline. Africa is warming faster than the global average, with some regions experiencing temperature rises up to 1.5 times the global mean.
The human toll is real and growing. The World Meteorological Organization found that 2024 was Africa’s warmest or second-warmest year on record, with floods, droughts, and storms causing fatalities, displacement, food insecurity, and infrastructure damage across multiple regions. The period from 2021 to 2025 has become the deadliest five-year stretch for weather disasters in Africa in 15 years, with over 221 million people affected by extreme weather events.
Eighteen African countries faced acute food crises in 2024, and droughts affected 178 million people, 81% of all those impacted by disasters on the continent.
The Case for a Minerals-Linked Climate Justice Framework
This conversation is gaining traction. The G20 Critical Minerals Framework, adopted at the 2025 Johannesburg Summit, acknowledged that the global demand for energy transition minerals must be reconciled with the industrial ambitions and sovereignty of the Global South. The UN Secretary-General’s Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals has called for “a new paradigm rooted in equity and justice.”
African governments are already acting on this. South Africa’s draft Mineral Resources Development Bill could give the government greater authority to designate certain minerals for local beneficiation and require portions of production to support domestic processing. Zimbabwe has experimented with lithium export restrictions to encourage local beneficiation. The DRC introduced cobalt export restrictions and quota measures in 2025, partly to address oversupply and pricing pressures, while also advancing efforts around traceability and supply chain accountability.
These moves point toward what a more equitable framework could look like:
Linking mineral access to climate finance. Countries and corporations seeking long-term mineral supply agreements could be encouraged, or required, to co-invest in the climate adaptation and clean energy needs of the communities from which those minerals come. Resource access and climate responsibility are closely connected.
Scaling up domestic value addition. Scaling up domestic value addition. Analysts, including Brookings Institution researchers, have argued that African countries capture only a limited share of the value generated by critical minerals when those minerals are exported mainly in raw or lightly processed form. Expanding domestic refining, processing, and manufacturing capacity would allow mineral-rich African economies to retain more value, create more skilled jobs, and strengthen their role in clean-energy supply chains.
The Addis Ababa Declaration from the 2025 Africa Climate Summit committed to placing sustainability, equity, and local development at the heart of mineral exploitation. Making that commitment really requires enforceable community consent requirements and transparent revenue-sharing mechanisms.
Building a Transition That Works for Everyone
The decisions made now about how minerals are sourced, processed, and governed will shape outcomes for decades. Africa’s mineral wealth gives the continent real influence in shaping those terms and strong grounds to ask that access comes with genuine investment in return: climate finance that matches the scale of need, policies that build local industrial capacity, and frameworks that protect communities.
A green transition that works for everyone, including the communities mining its foundations, will be more durable and more legitimate than one that does not. The window to get the terms right is open now.
