The energy transition and green mineral value chains: Challenges and opportunities for Africa and Latin America

ABSTRACT

There is growing momentum to address climate change and other environmental challenges through a ‘green energy transition’, that is, a shift from fossil fuel-based energy sources to renewable sources such as wind and solar. To carry out this global transition, a variety of resources – particularly minerals such as copper, lithium or cobalt – are required, and these are primarily extracted in the ‘Global South’. This means that these resource-rich countries face a double transition: the transition in their energy supplies, and the transition in their mining sectors. This special issue brings together different perspectives on the green energy transition and mineral value chains from Latin America and Africa. The articles investigate challenges for these countries, but also the opportunities that could potentially unfold as part of these far-reaching changes.

KEYWORDS:

• Energy transition
• mineral supply chains
• Africa
• Latin America
• geopolitics

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

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12 Melanie Müller, Christina Saulich, Svenja Schöneich and Meike Schulze, “From Competition to a Sustainable Raw Materials Diplomacy,” SWP Research Paper 2023/RP 01 (Berlin: Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, 2023), doi:10.18449/2023RP01.

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18 Müller et al., From Competition to a Sustainable Raw Materials Diplomacy.

19 Sikho Luthango and Meike Schulze, “The EU and the Negotiations for a Binding Treaty on Business and Human Rights,” SWP Comment 2023/C16 (Berlin: Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, 2023), https://doi.org/10.18449/2023C16.

20 Thomas Hirsch, Manuela Matthes and Joachim Fünfgelt, eds. Guiding Principles & Lessons Learnt For a Just Energy Transition in the Global South (Berlin: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, 2017), https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/iez/13955.pdf.

Additional information

Funding

This article was created as part of the research project ‘Transnational Governance of Sustainable Commodity Supply Chains’, which was funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (Bundesministerium für Wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung, BMZ).

Notes on contributors

Melanie Müller

Melanie Müller is a Senior Associate with a focus on Southern Africa at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, SWP) in Berlin and head of two research projects with a focus on mineral supply chains. She has been working on political and social developments in South Africa since 2011. Melanie Müller has also conducted research in other countries of the SADC region and in Niger and Ghana and has published extensively on the political and socioeconomic developments in Southern Africa, on resource governance and migration, as well as on European-African relations.

Meike Schulze

Meike Schulze is a Research Associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, SWP) in Berlin. At SWP, she works on the project ‘Transnational Governance of Sustainable Commodity Supply Chains’ and focuses on the Southern African region. Her research centres on sustainability governance of global supply chains, geopolitics and industrial policy relating to mineral resources. She holds an MA in Political Science from Free University of Berlin and an MSc in Public Policy and Human Development from the United Nations University-MERIT and Maastricht University.

Svenja Schöneich

Svenja Schöneich is an Associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, SWP) in Berlin, where she is working on the project entitled ‘Transnational Governance of Sustainable Commodity Supply Chains’. Svenja has worked in Mexico, Chile and Peru. Her research interests focus on resource extraction in Latin America as well as on transnational mineral supply chains.