Early in May, King Philippe of Belgium was on the edge of the Namib desert to inaugurate a project that aims to help decarbonize European industry, and which might just enable one of Africa’s smallest economies to hit the clean-energy big time. It was a humble start for such grand designs, as Namibian President Nangolo Mbumba hosted the king at an unfinished site near the port of Walvis Bay on the southern Atlantic Ocean, the baking rust-colored dunescape silent except for an occasional truck passing on the new roadway.
