Curbs on raw minerals exports by more than a dozen African countries are unlikely to kickstart home-grown processing industries unless they are accompanied by major investments in energy infrastructure, private sector partnerships and regional cooperation, mining analysts say.
Last month, Zimbabwe became the latest African country to announce new restrictions, banning the export of all raw minerals and lithium concentrates. So far, at least 13 African countries have enacted export curbs since 2023 as they seek to add value to their exports and create local jobs by processing and refining minerals domestically.
Zimbabwe, Africa’s top producer of lithium, which is used to make batteries for electric vehicles (EVs) and renewable energy storage, wants its resources of the silvery-white metal to be processed into higher-grade compounds such as lithium sulphate, an intermediate product that can be refined into a battery-grade material, rather than exported as raw concentrate for refining elsewhere.
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Government officials say adding value to mineral resources locally is a way to boost economic growth and fund social development. “Government remains committed to ensuring transparency, in-country value addition and beneficiation, compliance, and accountability in the exportation of Zimbabwe’s mineral resources,” said Polite Kambamura, the country’s minister of mines and mining development.
Done correctly, curbs on raw material shipments may encourage development, said Namibia-based public policy researcher Suzie Shefeni.
“A ban like this can serve development interests if it is [firstly], systematically and gradually implemented and backed by appropriate legal mechanisms and [secondly] done in collaboration with the private sector,” Shefeni said.
Restrictions alone won’t ensure added value
But others say that laying the groundwork for viable processing industries will take time and money.
The continent has “not considered everything that is needed for value addition and beneficiation to happen”, said Obert Bore, critical minerals expert and programme manager at the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Organisation, a Harare-based NGO.
“From a private sector perspective, when you speak to mining companies they will tell you these export bans do not work because we don’t have enough water, we don’t have enough energy,” Bore told Climate Home News.
Silas Olan’g, Africa energy transition advisor at the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI), said that while the intention behind export curbs is understandable, “experience shows that bans alone rarely deliver the desired outcomes”.
For export bans to work, he said governments must first put the right conditions in place, including reliable energy, supporting infrastructure, investment incentives and strong governance. Without these fundamentals, “such restrictions can inadvertently undermine the very value addition they seek to achieve”, he said.
Given these constraints, Olan’g argued that “export bans are not the right tool at this stage if the fundamentals are not in place” and could prove “counterproductive”. Instead, governments should use contracts with buyers to secure commitments on infrastructure, skills and technology transfer, building the foundations for value addition before imposing restrictions.
“Without skills, infrastructure, and reliable energy, local value addition cannot take off simply because exports are restricted” Olan’g said.
High price of added value
Africa is a major supplier of minerals needed for the global energy transition. The continent holds about 30% of the world’s critical mineral reserves, including lithium, cobalt and copper. The Democratic Republic of Congo produces roughly 70% of global cobalt, a key ingredient in lithium-ion batteries, while countries such as Guinea dominate bauxite production and Mozambique and Tanzania hold significant graphite deposits.
Zimbabwe exported more than 1.1 million metric tons of lithium-bearing spodumene concentrate in 2025. However with the recent move to ban exports, Bore said lithium processing requires huge quantities of energy and water, putting further strain on scarce supplies in Zimbabwe, which is prone to drought and has a hefty power deficit that causes prolonged outages.
The southern African nation, which initially banned exports of unprocessed lithium ore in 2022, before extending that to lithium concentrates last month, aims to provide 20% of global supplies.
Processing just one metric ton of lithium can require more than 50,000 litres of water, Bore said, meaning ramped-up activity by producers could significantly impact local communities and other economic sectors.
“In Zimbabwe at least, we are seeing significant impact on communities that will no longer have water, we are running out of water for our agriculture, for livestock because the companies are trying to comply with the government ban and by trying to comply they are drawing huge amounts of water just to process one ton of lithium which is not a lot,” he said.
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Energy is another major constraint for African nations intent on adding value to their critical minerals exports.
In Zimbabwe, Bore said half of the country’s electricity is already used by the mining sector.
However, officials say the country’s lithium boom is already delivering economic gains with export earnings from lithium surging to over $200 million in September of 2023, up from $70 million the year before. The sector has also attracted more than $1 billion in foreign investment, largely from Chinese firms developing mines and battery-material processing plants in the country.
One way of addressing the power deficit would be for governments to make less costly and faster renewable energy development an integral part of the plans for the mining sector, said Namibia-based Shefeni.
“(They) should prioritise a trajectory of green beneficiation by promoting the use of renewables including solar PV and wind, in their value addition systems,” she said.
Skirting the rules
If the right conditions are not in place for mining companies to comply with processing requirements, export bans run the risk of being bypassed, according to Bore.
Bans on exporting raw lithium have been introduced gradually since 2023, but Bore’s research suggests compliance remains weak.
“There are leakages. People are not complying because we don’t have the capacity, we don’t have the water, we don’t have the energy,” he said.
He added that complicated licensing processes are also creating opportunities for corruption.
“If the system is not conducive, it creates a breeding ground for corruption because people are trying to get licences and permits, and sometimes those licences end up in the wrong hands,” he said.
If African countries are to foster the development of mineral-processing industries, they will need to implement appropriate regulations, Shefeni said.
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The development of a comprehensive mining land registry could help countries minimise the scope for illegality and smuggling. Integrating the registry with geospatial mapping and production reporting would allow authorities to compare reported output with export declarations.
“This requires investment into a strong enforcement system that can hold offenders accountable by the law,” she said.
Unified Africa vs bilateral deals
Speaking during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Wamkele Mene, secretary-general of the African Continental Free Trade Area Secretariat, said African nations risk missing out on the opportunities offered by the global race for critical minerals if they do not coordinate their approach.
Echoing Mene’s call, Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio lamented: “We do not have collective bargaining power as a continent.”
Export bans by individual countries risk weakening their bargaining power by negotiating separately with international partners, rather than forming a common stance with other African nations in negotiating with major partners such as China, Bore said.
“We don’t have leverage doing it individually,” he said. He argued that African countries should stop speaking individually and instead present a united front. By highlighting the continent’s vast resources – copper in Zambia, cobalt in the DRC, lithium in Zimbabwe and Nigeria, bauxite in Guinea and iron in Mali – they could push for industries to be built locally and add value to these materials.
In that scenario, he said, China could respond and say “OK fine, you have the resources, you have the market. We can give you the technology, we will train your people and we can develop your skills.”
Shefeni also called for a greater focus on regional value chains, with “individual countries assessing how they are well positioned to contribute”.
NRGI’s Olan’g added that fragmented negotiations only “allow external partners to play countries against each other, leading to weaker commitments on infrastructure, skills, and technology transfer”.
“A unified Africa could pool demand, create economies of scale for smelters and refineries, and set common rules that strengthen governance and investor confidence,” he added.
The post Africa needs more than export bans to cash in on critical minerals, experts say appeared first on Climate Home News.
Africa needs more than export bans to cash in on critical minerals, experts say
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Revealed: Scientists tell Colombia fossil-fuel transition summit to ‘halt new expansion’
Countries attending a first-of-its-kind fossil-fuel summit have been asked to consider “action recommendations” such as “halting all new fossil-fuel expansion” and “reject[ing] gas as a bridging fuel”, according to a preliminary scientific report seen by Carbon Brief.
Around 50 nations will gather in Santa Marta, Colombia from 24-29 April to debate ways to “transition away” from fossil fuels, in the face of worsening climate change and sky-high oil prices.
The talks come after a large group of nations campaigned for, but ultimately failed, to get all countries to formally agree to a “roadmap” away from fossil fuels at the COP30 climate summit in Brazil in November.
The nations gathering in Santa Marta for the summit co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands, call themselves the “coalition of the willing”.
Ahead of country officials arriving in Santa Marta, a global group of academics will gather in the city this week to present and discuss the latest scientific evidence on fossil-fuel phaseout, which will then inform debate among policymakers.
A preliminary scientific “synthesis report” circulated to governments attending the talks and seen by Carbon Brief offers 12 “action insights” for countries to consider, along with a wide range of “action recommendations”.
These recommendations range from “phase out subsidies on fossil-fuel production and consumption” to “kick-start a forum to develop a legal framework to ban fossil-fuel advertisements”.
‘Rapid’ assessment
The preliminary scientific report seen by Carbon Brief – titled, “Action insights for the Santa Marta process” – is the result of some rapid work by an “ad-hoc” group of around 24 scientists.
It is designed to present governments attending the talks with concrete and actionable recommendations for transitioning away from fossil fuels.
The preliminary version, which includes recommendations such as “halting all new fossil fuel expansion”, has already been circulated to governments, with a view that this could help them to prepare for the talks in advance.
It will be further debated and refined by scientists attending the academic segment of the Santa Marta talks, before a final version is made public towards the end of April, Carbon Brief understands.
The process to produce the report began shortly after the conclusion of the COP30 climate summit in Brazil in November, explains its lead author, Dr Friedrich Bohn, a research scientist and co-founder of the Earth Resilience Institute in Germany. He tells Carbon Brief:
“When [Brazil] announced there would be a Santa Marta conference led by Colombia and the Netherlands, I was sitting listening with a small group of scientists. We thought: ‘This is great news, but it should be supported by scientific expertise.’”
One of the members of Bohn’s group had a pre-existing relationship with the Colombian government, allowing a dialogue to quickly be established, he continues:
“In the beginning, the idea was to just write a peer-reviewed paper. But, because of this close connection to the Colombian government and some feedback from them, the synthesis paper evolved.”
The report came out of a “very rapidly evolved process” that relied on the “goodwill” and “enthusiasm” of the academics involved, adds coordinating author Prof Frank Jotzo, a professor of climate change economics at Australian National University. (Jotzo is a former Carbon Brief contributing editor.) He tells Carbon Brief:
“It’s an attempt to get broad coverage on relevant topics from researchers with good expertise and reputation.”
The group of 24 scientists involved spent around two months compiling the “action insights” for the report, drawing on their expertise and the latest available research, says Jotzo.
Given the rapid nature of the report, it does not aim to be “completist”, has not been externally reviewed and did not follow a stringent process for author selection comparable to that used by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, he adds.
The contributors to the report currently skew to the global north and include more men than women, adds Bohn.
‘Direct guidance’
In a departure from IPCC reports, the preliminary Santa Marta synthesis report offers “very direct guidance to action”, says Jotzo.
The report lists 12 “action insights”, each with three “action recommendations”. (The list was cut down from a shortlist of about 40-50 insights, Carbon Brief understands.)
One of the most striking in the draft is “action insight 5”, which says:
“Take immediate measures to prevent future emissions. Ban new fossil infrastructure, mandate deep methane cuts, accelerate electrification and inscribe fossil-fuel phase-down targets in NDCs [nationally determined contributions] and clean-energy pathways support to low and middle income countries (LMICs).”
The accompanying three “action recommendations” include “halting all new fossil-fuel extraction and infrastructure projects ahead of a final investment decision”, “implementing deep, legally binding methane cuts in the energy sector” and “inscrib[ing] targets for fossil-fuel phase down, electrification and green exports in NDCs”.
(The draft report includes multiple references to “phasing out” and “phasing down” fossil fuels, rather than the “transition away from fossil fuels” language that was, ultimately, agreed by countries at the COP28 UN climate talks in Dubai in 2023.)
Another action insight says “public support for climate action is broadly underestimated and undermined by interest groups, but it can be strengthened by debunking greenwashing narratives”.
One recommendation for this insight is that nations “reject natural gas as a bridging technology and CCS [carbon capture and storage] techniques as scalable compensation”.
In a letter introducing the report to governments and civil society, the scientists note that making direct recommendations is a “challenge for our community”, but added:
“However, in the spirit of a constructive collaboration between science and policymaking, we allowed ourselves to identify some potential courses of action that our community would recommend for each particular issue – and we invite you to weigh these against your own circumstances and pick up whatever seems most useful for you and your colleagues.”
The prescriptiveness of the recommendations – something strictly prohibited in IPCC reports – was an explicit request from the Colombian government, Bohn says:
“The idea of actionable recommendations was introduced by the Colombian government.
“There was some discussion within the team about this. It’s a tricky area when you leave science and move to consultation. Therefore, we agreed, in the end, to call them ‘actionable recommendations’ and to make them as precise as possible, from the scientific perspective.”
Jotzo, a veteran of the IPCC process, tells Carbon Brief that it was “very liberating” to work on a report with a “free-form process”:
“The bulk of policy-related research is very readily deployed to recommendations pointing out what countries could do. The IPCC process, for example, just doesn’t allow that. As far as the summary for policymakers in the IPCC is concerned, it will usually be governments that filter out anything that could be interpreted as a specific recommendation.”
He adds that the hope is that some of the action insights might be reflected in the high-level segment of the Santa Marta conference:
“No one is under any illusions that governments will walk away from the Santa Marta conference and will have made a decision to implement recommendations one, seven and nine – or something like that. But it is a chance to insert directly applicable action points into national and plurilateral policy agendas.”
Colombia calling
The preliminary report will be further debated and refined by scientists attending the “pre-academic segment” of the Santa Marta talks.
This is taking place from 24-26 April, ahead of the “high-level segment” involving ministers and other policymakers from 28-29 April.
The pre-academic segment will also separately see the launch of a new advisory panel on fossil-fuel transition and a scientifically led roadmap for how Colombia can transition away from fossil fuels, Carbon Brief understands.
The high-level segment is expected to be attended by representatives from around 50 countries, including COP31 host Turkey and major oil-and-gas producers such as the UK, Canada, Australia, Brazil and Norway.
Countries expected to attend account for one-third of global fossil-fuel demand and one-fifth of global production, according to the Colombian government.
At the end of the conference, countries are due to release a report featuring a “menu of solutions” for transitioning away from fossil fuels, according to Colombia’s environment minister Irene Vélez Torres.
This report is in turn set to inform a global “roadmap” on transitioning away from fossil fuels being developed by the Brazilian COP30 presidency, which is due to be presented at COP31 in Turkey this November.
The Brazilian COP30 presidency offered to bring forward a “voluntary” fossil-fuel transition “roadmap” outside of the official COP process, after countries failed to formally agree to one during negotiations in Belém.
The post Revealed: Scientists tell Colombia fossil-fuel transition summit to ‘halt new expansion’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Revealed: Scientists tell Colombia fossil-fuel transition summit to ‘halt new expansion’
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