{"id":278528,"date":"2023-09-13T11:50:10","date_gmt":"2023-09-13T09:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=278528"},"modified":"2023-09-13T11:50:12","modified_gmt":"2023-09-13T09:50:12","slug":"us-turns-to-country-notorious-for-child-labor-and-unsafe-mines-to-source-its-ev-ambitions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=278528","title":{"rendered":"US Turns To Country Notorious For Child Labor And Unsafe Mines To Source Its EV Ambitions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From The DAILY CALLER<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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NICK POPE<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

CONTRIBUTOR<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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(Photo by Emmet Livingstone\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In order to facilitate electric vehicle (EV) production, the U.S. is seeking to spend taxpayer dollars to develop cobalt supply chains from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a country which is known for high prevalence of unsafe child labor in its mines, many of which are controlled by Chinese interests, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Department of Labor (DOL) are jointly committing $23 million in taxpayer funds to U.S. firms and other mining companies to integrate local Congolese operations and \u201cartisanal\u201d mines into their supply chains, as well as to improve labor standards for miners in the DRC, which are essentially nonexistent in most cases,\u00a0according<\/a>\u00a0to the WSJ. Chinese-controlled interests dominate the DRC\u2019s cobalt industry, refining about 75% of the global cobalt supply and manufacturing approximately 70% of the world\u2019s lithium-ion batteries, which are cobalt-intensive products that power EVs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cobalt is one of the key materials needed to build batteries for EVs, a technology which the Biden administration is pursuing aggressively as a pillar of its sweeping climate agenda,\u00a0according<\/a>\u00a0to the Cobalt Institute. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)\u00a0proposed<\/a>\u00a0stringent new tailpipe emissions standards in April which would effectively require American automobile manufacturers to have their new fleets be 67% EVs after model year 2032, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration\u00a0unveiled<\/a>\u00a0a proposal to update the Corporate Average Fuel Economy requirements that would, if finalized, amount to \u201can EV mandate,\u201d Dan Kish, senior fellow for the Institute for Energy Research, told the Daily Caller News Foundation at the time.\u00a0(RELATED: Chinese EV Company Buys Up Michigan Land For Battery Factory Despite Public Backlash)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/x.com\/DailyCaller\/status\/1681333095872487426?s=20<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Widespread adoption of EVs is set to facilitate the Biden administration\u2019s\u00a0goal<\/a>\u00a0of having the U.S. economy reach net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. The idea behind the spending is to incentivize American technology companies and auto manufacturers to invest in establishing safer and more ethical Congolese supply chains which will in turn bolster their businesses, but corporate concerns regarding security and governance in the country persist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nearly a third of the DRC\u2019s cobalt is extracted by \u201cartisanal\u201d miners, meaning that the unearthed material and the mines it comes from are not contracted to any particular corporation, according to the WSJ. Western countries have historically tried to not rely on artisanal miners, who generally sell their ores to local merchants who then sell the product to corporations and refiners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hundreds of thousands of people labor as artisanal miners in the DRC, a figure which is much larger than the number of people employed by more established operations which utilize heavy machinery, according to the WSJ. There were about 40,000 children laboring in unsafe Congolese cobalt mines as of 2021, according<\/a> to the Wilson Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Previous attempts by Western institutions, such as a Swiss company, to organize the DRC\u2019s artisanal mining have so far resulted in failure, according to the WSJ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Republican Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey\u00a0introduced<\/a>\u00a0the Countering China\u2019s Exploitation of Strategic Metals and Minerals and Child and Forced Labor in the Democratic Republic of Congo\u00a0Act<\/a>\u00a0in June, which would prohibit the importation of all products containing cobalt and lithium extracted by child miners and victims of labor trafficking in the DRC if it becomes law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The White House, USAID and DOL all did not respond immediately to requests for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In order to facilitate electric vehicle (EV) production, the U.S. is seeking to spend taxpayer dollars to develop cobalt supply chains from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a country which is known for high prevalence of unsafe child labor in its mines, many of which are controlled by Chinese interests, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":278537,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691821527,691818076,691822556,691822555,691822352,691821464,691818154,691822554],"class_list":{"0":"post-278528","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-child-labor","9":"tag-co2","10":"tag-cobalt-industry","11":"tag-democratic-republic-of-the-congo-drc","12":"tag-electric-vehicle-ev","13":"tag-environmental-protection-agency-epa","14":"tag-net-zero","15":"tag-unsafe-mines","17":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/0827aca4d-6e0b-4e76-9b8a-61f1e80ad9ff_1088x870.jpg?fit=1088%2C870&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1aso","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":243185,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=243185","url_meta":{"origin":278528,"position":0},"title":"Biden 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https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/image-158.png?fit=1132%2C637&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/image-158.png?fit=1132%2C637&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":234879,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=234879","url_meta":{"origin":278528,"position":1},"title":"Biden turns to country for green energy metals with documented child labor issues","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"18\/12\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"The Biden administration opened the door to financing mining projects in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Zambia to bolster the\u00a0global green energy supply chain\u00a0as it pushes ahead with its climate agenda, despite the DRC\u2019s documented issues with child laborers being used in such mines.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar 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According to Siddharth Kara, an author and expert on modern-day slavery, human trafficking and child labor, approximately 72% of all the cobalt mined globally comes from the Congo.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-54.png?fit=862%2C496&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-54.png?fit=862%2C496&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-54.png?fit=862%2C496&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-54.png?fit=862%2C496&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":343367,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=343367","url_meta":{"origin":278528,"position":3},"title":"The environmental downside of electric vehicles","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"16\/09\/2024","format":false,"excerpt":"At one time, \u201cSaving the Environment\u201d and \u201cFighting Climate Change\u201d were synonymous. That is no longer true. The quest for Clean Energy through electric vehicles (EVs) epitomizes \u201cthe end justifies the means.\u201d According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), an electric vehicle requires six times the mineral inputs of a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"clean energy\"","block_context":{"text":"clean energy","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=clean-energy"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/OIG-74.jpeg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/OIG-74.jpeg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/OIG-74.jpeg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/OIG-74.jpeg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":257807,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=257807","url_meta":{"origin":278528,"position":4},"title":"Mining Of Cobalt for Electric Vehicle Batteries: THE SOCIAL IMPACTS","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"17\/05\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Of these, the mining and processing of cobalt has attracted the most recent media attention because of the adverse social and environmental impacts. 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It exploded with the arrival of electric vehicles and now is skyrocketing in tandem with government EV mandates and subsidies. 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