Building a solar power panel. Despite its immense mineral resources,
Africa is yet to fully translate this potential into economic progress
due to lack of extensive data on its deposits, which has curtailed
investment activity in the sector. PHOTO FILE | AFP
The growing adoption of clean and renewable energy in the world
could spark a mineral boom for resource-rich countries, a new World Bank
report on clean energy prospects says.
The report, titled “The growing role of minerals and metals for a low-carbon future”
says the increased adoption of greener energy solutions including wind,
solar and storage batteries could increase the demand of minerals and
metals like aluminium, copper, iron, and rare earth minerals such as
indium, molybdenum and neodymium, as the world struggles to keep global
average temperature below 2°C.
Increased adoption of
electric storage batteries for instance, could grow the demand metals
from a ‘relatively modest level’ to more than 1,000 per cent should the
2°C is attained.
Global energy trends have been
shifting recently as countries move away from fossil fuels towards a
low-carbon approach in the face of global warming and climate change.
An upsurge in new solar, hydro plants and wind capacity saw renewable energy grow in 2015.
Some
147 GW of renewable energy was generated in 2015, as investments in the
sector increased to $286 billion, more than twice the $130 billion
spent on coal and gas-fired power generation, according to the Renewables Global Status Report 2017 (REN21).
This
growing demand, the report says, is an opportunity for mineral-rich
countries to expand their sectors and grow their economies.
In
2016, renewable energy registered a 10 per cent increase in total
installed capacity to a record 161 Gigawatts, according to REN21, a
network of public and private sector groups covering 155 nations and 96
per cent of the world’s population.
According
to a report by business intelligence service Meed, around 67GW of clean
energy projects at various stages of design are in the Middle East and
North Africa region, and this is expected to increase in the next five
years’ programmes.
Resource-rich Africa
Africa
is endowed with mineral resources with at least 20 countries in the
sub-Saharan region classified as ‘resource rich’ by the IMF.
The
continent hosts about 30 per cent of the world’s total mineral
reserves, with an even higher share of diamonds, manganese, gold,
platinum, and cobalt.
Despite its
immense mineral resources, Africa is yet to fully translate this
potential into economic progress due to lack of extensive data on its
deposits, which has curtailed investment activity in the sector.
According
to a joint report by the Global Financial Integrity and the African
Development Bank released in 2013, African countries lost between $600
billion and $1.4 trillion in “net resource transfers”.
The Illicit Financial flows and the Problem of Net Resource Transfers from Africa report
said most losses occur when governments are persuaded to sell their
natural resources for less than they are worth or to purchase them back
at inflated prices.
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