This one-year research project will investigate the scale and impacts of Chinese renewable energy activities in Africa. We will focus on China’s involvement in critical mining activities in relation to the renewable energy and energy storage sectors, including lithium, cobalt, and nickel.
We will examine China’s role in exploring these strategic resources in several African countries like DR Congo and Zimbabwe, and its implications for these countries’ sustainable environmental, social and economic development. Another specific issue to be explored under this research is on how to enhance China’s engagement with Africa’s fast growing distributed or off-grid renewable energy system, which is crucial for achieving SDG 7 of universal access by 2030. The technological, financial and institutional barriers from both ends are to be identified. This is a collaborative project with both African and Chinese partners, with the aim to prescribe practical policy recommendations for enhancing the governance of Chinese activities in relating to the clean energy transition in Africa.
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