Democratic Republic of the Congo: A Brief Introduction

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is the fourth most populous country in Africa, with a population of 90 million.1 It is also the second largest African country in terms of land area, with its vast equatorial territory spanning a wide range of landscapes. It contains the world’s second largest river, the Congo, its second-largest rainforest, and part of the Eastern Afromontane Biodiversity Hotspot.2 Extensive mineral resources are concentrated in the drier southeast of the country, and were the source of 70% of global cobalt production and 21% of global diamond production in 2019.3 DRC’s exceptional biodiversity and mineral richness make it particularly vulnerable to environmental threats and extractive pressures. The harvesting of rubber and mining of minerals shaped a famously brutal colonial period, followed by a turbulent independence characterized by foreign intervention and long-term conflict.4  

Mapping Major Climate Events and Climate-Induced Displacement

In the DRC, flooding is the major cause of climate-induced displacement. Climate change is likely to result in both an increase in rainfall and flooding events throughout much of the DRC.5 During 2020, floods displaced almost 280,000 people, but at the end of the year 65,00 people remained displaced. Far more people were displaced by conflict, with 5.2 million people internally displaced by conflict at the end of 2021.6 Furthermore, in 2019, there were 1.7 million Congolese emigrants internationally.7 Climate change fuels conflict by causing increased pressure on resources. It also aggravates flooding and soil erosion that contributes to food scarcity.8 Historically, DRC has been a common destination for refugees from neighboring countries.9

Mapping the Costs of the Climate Crisis

The FAO has found the DRC to have more people in the crisis phase of acute food insecurity than any other country.10  Poor rainfall distribution has contributed to this widespread food insecurity.11 Over the next several decades, food insecurity will likely compound the effects of elevated temperature and humidity in increasing the prevalence of Neglected Tropical Diseases, several of which Congo already has the largest number of cases worldwide.12 The DRC also faces major threats not from climate change itself, but from responses to climate change that rely on the adoption of alternative energy technologies. Congo has large reserves of various metals that are vital to many of these technologies, including the cobalt and lithium used in electric vehicle batteries.13 By increasing international demand for these metals, alternative energy technologies are causing the expansion of the Congolese mining industry. This industry is currently in a period of rapid growth, with the number of mining projects having increased by over 300% since 2007.14 Artisanal and small scale mining, which accounts for a great deal of Congolese mineral production and employs around 12.5 million people, has high rates of injury and mortality.15 The mining industry continues to fuel conflict and rampant violence and injustice, as competing groups fight over access to mineral resources. Chinese investors currently control about 70% of Congolese mining assets.16 Many of these assets are recently acquired from Western companies. 

Mapping Resilience and Migration Pathways

The DRC’s NDC is oriented around achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.17 The top sustainable development priority in the NDC is sustainable land use and forestry. 90% of the DRC’s greenhouse gas emissions come from land use, land use change, and forestry.18 The DRC’s extensive forests made it a carbon sink until 2008, but increased logging and other land use has since made it a net emitter.19 Sustainable land use will thus be crucial to reducing Congolese ghg emissions. However, adaptation remains the DRC’s top priority. Its NDC identifies five principal climate risks: intense rain, coastal erosion, floods, extreme heat events, and seasonal droughts.20 The DRC plans to address these threats through the framework of the 2006 National Action Program for Climate Change Adaption (PANA). Under this framework, the DRC is working to foster a more resilient agricultural sector and implement sustainable forest management.21 As the NDC notes, the DRC can draw on its extraordinary richness in natural resources, including hydropower.22 The DRC has the greatest hydropower potential of any country in Africa, of which only 2.5% remains developed.23 Hydropower development has the potential to provide power to vast swaths of the population that remain without access to electricity.24 In the meantime, Congolese emigrants continue to face discrimination and barriers to legal residence in their destination countries.

Necessary Changes

The effects of climate change on the DRC bring into relief the necessity of a just transitions approach to decarbonization. Many of the technologies that currently figure into global decarbonization efforts rely on minerals extracted, at extraordinary human and environmental cost, from the DRC. The role of so-called “green” technology in the harm caused by the mining industry calls into question the true sustainability of energy transitions that rely on hi-tech solutions. These transitions often constitute a kind of arbitrage under which risk and harm is exported to low-income countries, in a dynamic that replicates colonial economies. For decades, the Congolese diaspora in Europe, particularly in Belgium, DRC’s former colonial overlord, have been calling attention to the way colonial violence continues to drive conflict and exploitation.25 These calls must be heeded with respect to the mining industry in the DRC.