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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Lithium boom: Zimbabwe looks to China to secure a place in the EV battery supply chain
Chinese investors have flocked to Zimbabwe to secure lithium supplies, promising local development. But analysts warn Zimbabwe needs more robust governance for communities to reap the benefits
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.
South African rare earths project aims to rival Chinese with low-cost model
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.
China maximises battery recycling to shore up critical mineral supplies
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
Climate Change
DeBriefed 19 June 2026: Bonn talks end in ‘gridlock’ | Energy’s ‘new era’ | Oceans in climate negotiations
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Bonn talks close
‘SIDE-STEPPING AND STALLING’: UN climate talks in Bonn have ended in “gridlock”, according to Climate Home News. The outlet reported on the failure to balance developing countries’ need for climate-adaptation finance with “richer nations’ desire to move forward” on emissions cuts. It added that both topics were subject to “rule 16”, meaning no agreement could be reached and work will be pushed to the COP31 summit in Turkey. Inside Climate News quoted UN climate executive secretary Simon Stiell, who said the talks had seen “side-stepping and stalling”.
JUST TRANSITION: One “glimmer of hope” came from negotiations on achieving a “just transition”, reported Euronews. The news outlet said negotiators “made headway on operationalising the Belém-Antalya mechanism”, intended to support people in the shift to a low-carbon economy. However, Politico concluded that much of the focus in Bonn had “shift[ed] to efforts outside diplomatic talks – raising questions about the future of global climate negotiations”.
‘ATTACKING SCIENCE’: Agence France-Presse reported on the EU, Switzerland and “dozens of developing nations” warning of “attacks on science” by a “small group of fossil-fuels interests” in Bonn. Table Briefings explained that “the 1.5C target is increasingly being challenged” and the role of the UN climate-science panel – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – in an upcoming assessment of global climate progress “remains controversial”. See Carbon Brief’s full write-up of the talks for more detail.
US-Iran deal
PRICE DROP: The US and Iran announced that they have reached an interim agreement to halt the war and reopen the strait of Hormuz, reported Bloomberg. Oil prices have fallen, as the “long-awaited deal” began the process of “eas[ing]” the global energy crisis triggered by the conflict, according to the New York Times. The Associated Press noted that high fuel prices will “likely outlast the Iran war”.
‘OIL GLUT’: The Financial Times reported that the International Energy Agency (IEA) has forecast a “glut of oil” emerging next year, if the peace deal holds. The IEA said this would allow countries to build new strategic reserves, as they “review their energy strategies and policies in response to the crisis”, according to Reuters.
‘NEW ERA’: Agence France-Presse reported that oil and gas companies have “few illusions about a return to normal for the Gulf energy industry after more than three months of blockage”. One analyst told the newswire that the war “showed the oil and gas industry that Hormuz risk is no longer just a geopolitical headline”.
Around the world
- OCEAN MONITOR: The Trump administration is “abandoning its plan” to dismantle a $368m ocean monitoring system key for tracking climate change after a “bipartisan backlash on Capitol Hill”, reported the New York Times.
- CORAL HAVEN: The New York Times covered preliminary research, presented at the Our Ocean Conference in Kenya, suggesting there could be three times as many “coral refugia” – where corals are relatively safe from climate change – than previously thought.
- BAD CREDIT: Down to Earth reported that the first carbon credits issued under the Paris Agreement’s new Article 6.4 mechanism are “facing scrutiny over alleged links to institutions controlled by Myanmar’s military junta”.
- OIL BACKTRACK: Reuters reported that oil-and-gas company Equinor has dropped a renewable-energy target and scaled back clean investments, while another Reuters story noted that Shell is selling off its offshore wind assets.
1.1 billion
The number of children facing “at least three overlapping climate hazards”, according to a new Unicef report covered by Agence France-Presse.
Latest climate research
- Including the “permafrost carbon-climate feedback” in climate models increases the chance of exceeding “tipping elements” – such as the Greenland ice sheets, Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation or Amazon rainforest – by up to 50% | Environmental Research Letters
- The intensity of influenza outbreaks could decline in temperate regions, but increase in tropical areas over the next century, as the climate warms | PNAS Nexus
- European snow cover has declined by 20% for December and January since the start of the industrial era, revealing an “unprecedented ongoing shrinkage of European winters” | Communications Earth & Environment
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
The more than 2m battery electric vehicles (BEVs), 1m “plug-in” hybrids (PHEVs) and 100,000 electric vans on UK roads are already saving drivers a total of around £3bn a year, according to new Carbon Brief analysis. This amounts to savings of more than £1,100 a year in fuel costs for each BEV driver in the UK. The analysis comes amid reports in UK media this week that the government is considering “watering down” its EV sales targets.
Spotlight
Oceans rising at UN climate talks
The state of the world’s oceans is inextricably linked to the changing climate – and many delegates at UN climate talks want to see more focus on this issue, reports Carbon Brief.
Oceans are often described as the world’s “greatest ally” against climate change – absorbing 30% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and most of the heat generated by those emissions.
They are also the site of important climate solutions, such as huge offshore windfarms and the shipping industry’s transition to cleaner fuels.
At the same time, the oceans themselves present a growing danger to coastal communities and sea life due to sea level rise, marine heatwaves and ocean acidification.
These diverse issues have led to growing calls within the UN climate process for more focus on oceans. During climate negotiations this week in Bonn – known as SB64 – nations and civil society had a chance to air these views during an “ocean and climate change dialogue”.
‘Elevate action’
Oceans first entered UN climate outcomes in 2019, when the final COP25 negotiated text requested a new “dialogue” on “the ocean and climate change to consider how to strengthen mitigation and adaptation action”.
The following years saw this dialogue established as an annual event. However, the political weight of these discussions has been limited.
COP31 is being co-led by Turkey and Australia, but with Pacific islands playing a supporting role. These small islands sometimes self-identify as “large ocean states”, stressing the ocean’s centrality in their societies.
In Bonn, figures from across the presidency threw their weight behind this issue. Chris Bowen, an Australian minister and incoming COP31 “president of negotiations”, told attendees:
“Australia, Turkey and the Pacific see an important opportunity to elevate ocean-based climate action.”
Strategies and finance
The two-day dialogue in Bonn involved a series of panels, statements and breakout groups.
One of the main topics was how oceans are integrated into national climate plans under the Paris Agreement, known as “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs).
Three-quarters of the latest round of NDCs mention oceans, with conservation of “blue carbon” ecosystems the most frequently described action. (Landscapes such as mangroves can both absorb CO2 and protect coastal areas.)
Delegates also discussed alignment with the UN biodiversity process, as well as ocean finance, which currently makes up less than 1% of all climate finance.
(As discussions were taking place in Bonn, country officials also gathered in Mombasa, Kenya for the 11th Our Ocean Conference. Carbon Brief’s associate editor Giuliana Viglione attended the conference and will publish a full summary shortly.)
Developing countries were clear that many of the ocean-related actions in their NDCs would depend on receiving more financial support.
‘Political momentum’
With the backing of the COP31 presidency, delegates were hopeful about where this year’s dialogue could lead.
Charles Hamilton, an advisor for the Bahamas who spoke for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) in the dialogue, told Carbon Brief that island representatives “are not traveling thousands of miles to just talk and pat ourselves on the back”. He added:
“A dialogue that just remains a dialogue is just more talk – no action.”
Given that, he said “discussions in the dialogue must move into COP decisions and the decisions must be actioned”, noting the importance of finance.
Marina Corrêa, oceans lead at WWF-Brazil, pointed to an upcoming UN climate change Standing Committee on Finance forum as a space to ramp up pressure on ocean finance.
More broadly, she wanted to see the presidencies translate their support into a “leader-level ocean initiative” that could “mainstream” oceans across negotiations.
“We have a really interesting opportunity, in terms of political momentum,” Corrêa told Carbon Brief.
Watch, read, listen
‘HOTTER THAN HELL’: An episode of the BBC’s Rare Earth podcast titled “hotter than hell” considered the issue of extreme heat, with input from experts and “people facing up to the hottest temperatures on the planet”.
NOT BROKEN?: John Drake, a professor of ecology at the University of Georgia, wrote an essay for Aeon – also re-published as a Guardian “long read” – questioning the framing of ecosystems and climate systems “breaking down”.
ON COURSE: On his Volts podcast, US climate journalist David Roberts interviewed UK climate minister Katie White, quizzing her about whether the UK will “stay the course with its climate plans”.
Coming up
- 20-28 June: London climate action week
- 21 June: Colombia presidential runoff
- 24 June: UK Climate Change Committee progress in reducing emissions 2026 report to parliament
Pick of the jobs
- Mongabay, managing editor – Africa | Salary: Unknown. Location: Global
- Contexte, environment reporter – Brussels | Salary: €45,000-€60,000. Location: Brussels
- Climate 200, communications director | Salary: Unknown. Location: Australia
- Energy Tracker Asia, energy transition correspondent | Salary: $3,000-$4,000 per month. Location: South-east Asia (remote)
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
The post DeBriefed 19 June 2026: Bonn talks end in ‘gridlock’ | Energy’s ‘new era’ | Oceans in climate negotiations appeared first on Carbon Brief.
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