Green imperialism in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has involved the dismantling of Congolese sovereign ownership and control over its natural resource wealth (water and sunlight alongside low-carbon metals) and establishing open access to the Congolese economy. This has helped to advance the green economic agendas of hegemonic powers by securing them access to low-cost, low-carbon metals and a market for the entry of renewable energy finance and technologies. In the DRC, the political response to green imperialism is reproducing a model of mining-led national development that historically has delivered little by way of material improvements for most of the population, thus undermining the future prospects of prosperity in the country

Speaker: Ben Radley

Ben’s research examines the uneven and combined socio-economic impacts of global decarbonisation through a focus on mining, energy and labour in Central Africa and the Pacific region. He is the author of Disrupted Development in the Congo: The Fragile Foundations of the African Mining Consensus, published by Oxford University Press in 2023.

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