Geostrategic Risks in the Transition to Green Energies (Using the Example of Africa)

Abstract

This article analyzes the resource potential of Africa in terms of ensuring the transition of the world economy to green energy and identifies the geostrategic risks associated with this transition. The authors come to the conclusion that African countries today have significant reserves of metals necessary for the green transition. At the same time, they are world leaders in reserves and production of bauxite, cobalt, chromium, platinoids, and tantalum. There are also copper, lithium, zinc, and nickel ores in significant quantities. All the other metals critical for green energy are also present on the continent. The main suppliers of germanium to world markets for a long time have been Namibia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There are significant reserves of rare-earth metals (yttrium) in Nigeria, Morocco, and Egypt; cadmium in Namibia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and gallium in Guinea. The transition to green technologies could theoretically improve the situation of those African countries that have high-tech materials, due to a sharp increase in demand and prices for these goods. In reality, they will be subjected to the most severe pressure from Western TNCs using the entire arsenal of colonial tools to create favorable conditions for the latter to acquire these types of materials at the lowest cost. According to the authors, if the West’s energy-transition and climate strategies are implemented, then to the greatest extent this burden will be borne by those countries that have historically participated in the depletion of traditional energy sources and environmental pollution less than others—the poorest countries in the world, the greatest number of which are in Africa. The scheme being pushed by the West will forever block their path to breakthrough economic development. Backwardness will be conserved technologically. They have the same fate planned for Russia.