By Adam Mahoney
A lawsuit filed five years ago charged several U.S. tech companies with complicity in child labor. Among said companies was Tesla, the world’s largest electric vehicle producer. Tucked into that lawsuit is the story of “John Doe 1,” a pre-teen of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, buried alive under the rubble of a collapsed mine tunnel. His body was never recovered.
Of the 255,000 Congolese mining cobalt, 40,000 are children. Approximately 75 percent of the world’s reserves of cobalt are in the Congo. The mineral is a valuable component of rechargeable batteries because of its unique electron configuration that allows batteries to remain stable at higher energy densities. Thus cobalt-heavy batteries can hold more charge. On average, an electric vehicle battery requires 30 pounds of cobalt, meaning millions of tons of the mineral is needed for America’s EV boom. This demand will continue to push thousands of Black women, men and children into pits and tunnels.
Cobalt mining pollutes critical water sources, plus the air and land. It is linked to respiratory illnesses, food insecurity, and violence. Still, in March, a U.S. court ruled on the case, finding that American companies could not be held liable for child labor in the Congo, even as they helped intensify its prevalence.
In 2022, the U.S., the world’s third-largest importer of cobalt, spent nearly $525 million on the mineral, much of which came from the Congo. As America’s dependence on the Congo has grown, Black-led labor and environmental organizers here in the U.S. have worked to build a transnational solidarity movement. Activists say that the inequities faced in the Congo relate to those that Black Americans experience.
Bakari Height, the transit equity organizer at the Labor Network for Sustainability, says the global harm caused by the energy transition and the inability of Black Americans to participate in it at home are for a simple reason.
“We’re always on the menu, but we’re never at the table,” he said. “The space of transportation planning and climate change is mostly white people, or people of color that aren’t Black, so these discussions about exploitation aren’t happening in those spaces—it is almost like a second form of colonialism.”
Height says, however, when Black people are in the room, these conversations are not only more prevalent, but also more action-oriented. His organization supports Black workers and helps craft policies that support “bold climate action in ways that address labor concerns without sacrificing what science is telling us is necessary.”
While the American South has picked up about two-thirds of the electric vehicle production jobs, Black workers there are more likely to work in non-unionized warehouses, receiving less pay and protections. They’re also less likely to own one of the EVs they help produce. Statistically, most households purchasing EVs earn more than $100,000 per year. Median Black household income is just $46,000 annually, which could explain why only 2 percnet of EV drivers are Black.
“Automakers are moving their EV manufacturing and operations to the South in hopes of exploiting low labor costs and making higher profits,” explained Yterenickia Bell, an at-large council member in Clarkston, Georgia, last year. While Georgia has been targeted for investment by the Biden administration, workers are “refusing to stand idly by and let them repeat a cycle that harms Black communities and working families.” The White House has also failed to share data that definitively proves whether Black workers are receiving these jobs, rather than them simply being placed near Black communities.
Congolese and Black American groups building bridges, include the Congo Initiative based in the Congo and the D.C.-based group Friends of the Congo. Friends of the Congo has worked on several educational campaigns at home, brought Black Americans to the Congo for activism trips, and offered regular support to Congolese youth leaders. The work is necessary as “John Doe 1’s” story has only become more common in the country.
“The country,” explained Maurice Carney, executive director of Friends of the Congo, “was designed for extraction, not development.” Companies operating in the country are “primarily concerned about their own welfare, filling their own pockets. They’re not really concerned about the welfare of the Congolese people,” Carney said earlier this year.
Carney, a former research consultant for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, has spent years pointing out the link between the Congolese and Black American struggles.
“What we say to people is that in a country that’s so critical to the future of the planet, a country that we’re all connected to through our cellphones and iPads or electric vehicles, [is that] even if you’re in California, you’re connected to the Congo,” he said.
“Congolese women have the highest metallic content in the body in the world because they’re digging in the soil to get those minerals,” he added.
Similarly in the U.S., as poor birth outcomes have been linked to higher exposure to pollutants, pregnant Black women are more likely to live in poor-quality environments compared to white women.
While there has been a push to use alternative minerals in electric batteries, most other options are unstable and unsafe for the user. Some experts have argued that the U.S. should turn its attention to Canada, which is in the top five countries producing cobalt and the only nation in the Western Hemisphere with deposits of all the minerals required to make next-generation electric batteries. But it is a more costly venture that, to this point, has yet to make waves in the U.S.
In the interim, no one knows how many women, men, and children have been killed in the Congolese operations, but the tally, which is likely to be thousands of lives per year, is expected to rise, researchers believe.
In the coming years, it is estimated that more than half of the world’s cobalt will be used just for EVs. The federally subsidized push to increase electric vehicle production by 2030 calls a 15-fold increase in battery production. Already, the nation’s imports of cobalt increased by 35 percent from 2021 to 2022.
Recently, the push for mining in the Congo has reached new heights because of a rift in China-U.S. relations regarding EV production. Earlier this month, the Biden administration issued a 100 percent tariff on Chinese-produced EVs to deter their purchase in the U.S.
Currently, China owns about 80 percent of the legal mines in the Congo, but tens of thousands of Congolese work in “artisanal” mines outside these facilities, where there are no rules or regulations, and where the U.S. gets much of its cobalt imports.
“Cobalt mining is the slave farm perfected,” wrote Siddharth Kara last year in the award-winning investigative book Cobalt Red: How The Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives. “It is a system of absolute exploitation for absolute profit.”
While it is the world’s richest country in terms of wealth from natural resources, Congo is among the poorest in terms of life outcomes. Of the 201 countries recognized by the World Bank Group, it has the 191st lowest life expectancy.
Still, the U.S. has been slow to acknowledge its role. In a February White House press briefing about the U.S. effects and efforts on the environment across the African continent, the Congo and cobalt were never mentioned.
Solidarity activism reached a national stage at the Morehouse College graduation ceremony, when professors at the school sent clear messages to President Joe Biden. Samuel Livingston and Cynthia Hewitt unfurled a Congolese flag as Biden gave his speech. And Dr. Taura Taylor, wearing a DRC pin on her cap, stood up, raised her fist and turned her back to the president.
Dreaming of actual societal benefits
The exploitation of Black workers in the Congo has contributed to some Black transit activists in the U.S. not fully supporting the transition to electric vehicles despite the pollution and health benefits for some Black communities at home. The American Lung Association says 110,000 lives would be saved and 2.7 million childhood asthma attacks avoided by 2050 if Biden’s goals are reached and transportation pollution is lowered.
EVs may not directly emit fossil fuels, but they must be recharged. Currently, energy used to recharge them mainly comes from polluting fossil fuel power plants, which are disproportionately found in Black communities. Activists say that moving toward more mass transit options would create actual societal benefits.
America’s dependence on cars has grown to the second highest globally. American buses, subways, and light rail lines consistently have lower ridership levels, fewer service hours, and longer waits than those in virtually every comparable country.
“We don’t all live in big cities, but mass transit is still 100 percent the better option,” Height said. “More investment in mass transit options gives us different ways and methods of looking at how we can clean up many of these systems.”
It is true, Height acknowledged, that electric buses still rely on cobalt, but investment in mass transit options would dramatically lower the nation’s dependence on the mineral and the need for new infrastructure. Infrastructure funding, he said, that is not being used. Since 2021, the federal government has doled out nearly $10 billion for public electric vehicle charging infrastructure, for example, but only four states have built stations using the money.
Height believes that these discrepancies show the need for other investment options. While the Biden administration has allocated more than $65 billion for electric vehicles, the nation’s biggest climate spending bill allocated just $1 billion for clean heavy-duty vehicles like buses.
The investment, Height said, also “needs to come with a behavioral shift. People need to question: Do you really need a vehicle if you’re going to the same place that your neighbor is going, or the same direction as the people down the street?
“We need to do it before this next individualistic idea of you get an EV, you get an EV, and you get an EV takes root,” he argued.
Adam Mahoney is the climate and environment reporter at Capital B.
Source: capitalbnews.org, May 27, 2024.