Gravitas Plus: The dark side of Electric Vehicles

climate action is the new buzzword and why wouldn't it be one world is all we have and our world is at risk countries corporates and citizens claim to be doing all they can to save the planet from climate change green energy is being floated as one of the top solutions we are replacing coal with hydropower fossil fuels with solar energy petrol and diesel cars with electric vehicles evs are being pitched as cleaner greener and sustainable but are they what's clean for the environment may not really be clean hidden beneath the shiny exteriors of an eevee is a story of blood batteries these cars drive human rights violations extreme poverty and child labor hello and welcome to gravitas plus i'm palki sharma an electric car runs on battery you know that but do you know what these batteries are made of rare metals like lithium and cobalt cobalt gives the battery stability and allows it to operate safely it's a bluish gray colored metal it is found in the earth's crust or what we call crustal rocks cobalt has several uses like in jet turbine generators tool materials pigments and smartphone batteries but its major use is in lithium-ion batteries half of the cobalt produced goes into electric cars we're talking about 4 to 30 kilos of cobalt per battery this metal is found all over the world like in australia canada china cuba south africa the united states the philippines but 70 percent of the total supply comes from one country congo the democratic republic of congo let's zoom into this country dr congo is the second largest country in africa its gdp is around 49 billion dollars congo is synonymous with conflict poverty and corruption beneath the country's red earth is the world's largest deposit of cobalt 92 million people live here some 2 million depend on cobalt production they are called negocions cobalt mining in congo is divided into two categories industrial or large-scale mining and artisanal or small-scale mining what's the difference between the two artisanal mines are unregulated labor laws do not apply here neither do safety protocols these mines produce 20 to 30 percent of congo's cobalt some 200 000 miners work in these mines at least 40 000 of them are children some as young as six these children flirt with death daily they enter vertical tunnels most of them are too narrow for adults to enter inside it's like a furnace the children dig for cobalt under inhuman conditions sometimes they have shovels but mostly they dig with their bare hands they have no masks no gloves no work clothes and sometimes just 20 minutes worth of oxygen but these young children go on for ours after digging they crush the rocks they wash them and carry their fines to the market to find a buyer how much do these children make sometimes as little as a dollar cobalt is a multi-billion dollar industry it is estimated to be worth 13.63 billion dollars by 2027 but this money never reaches a child who is spotting and extracting the metal in poverty stricken congo even a dollar is worth risking one's life many die trying to make this money abc recently profiled a woman who lost her son to a mind related accident the boy was 13 years old he told his mother he was going to the market to buy coal for her so that she could cook instead the boy went to a cobalt mine to try and earn an extra buck for the house the mine embankment collapsed the 13 year old never returned home between 2014 and 2015 at least 80 artisanal miners died in congo in 2019 an accident killed 43 miners according to one estimate two 000 illegal miners die in congo every year many suffer permanent lung damage skin infection and life-changing injuries in 2019 some families from congo filed a lawsuit they named companies like tesla accused them of aiding and abetting in the death and injury of children the lawsuit spoke about a child he was referred to as john doe one john was working as a human mule since the age of nine he would carry bags after bags of cobalt just for 0.75 dollars a day one day john fell into a tunnel fellow workers dragged him out of it but they left john alone on the ground when the child's parents found out about the accident they rushed to the mining site it was too late john was paralyzed doctors say he will never be able to walk again why do children work in these high-risk minds because of poverty and the hope to get out of it families in congo are betting big on cobalt it's like their crypto their chance to make it big the metals demand has tripled in the last decade it is expected to double again by 2035 the demand is being driven by electric vehicles today there are more than 6.5 million evs on the road by 2040 that number will touch 66 million so that 66 million multiplied by 30 kilos of cobalt do the math by 2050 the demand for cobalt production is expected to increase 585 percent congo's families want to ride this wave and tide over poverty sending their children to the mines is not a choice for them but necessity these children end up working as artisanal miners or informal workers they're not employed by any company but several companies line up to buy their fines you see it is cheaper to buy cobalt from a child than a regulated mine and who understands business better than china most of these companies dealing in blood batteries are from china it dominates the global supply chain of cobalt china owns up to 50 percent of the metals production it controls around 80 percent of kobel's refining in the last 15 years chinese companies have bought out north american and european companies mining in congo today chinese firms own 15 out of the 19 industrial mines in this country in exchange for congo global china has promised the country billions in investment in the form of infrastructure schools and roads now congo is another example of how stories featuring china never end well today china is leaking blood cobalt into the supply chain of electric vehicles chinese companies are buying cobalt from children encouraging them to participate in the trade of blood batteries one of the largest cobalt processors in congo is a company called cdm or congo dongfung mining it is a subsidiary of xiang huayu cobalt a chinese company of course who are your supplies kobold to electric car makers like volkswagen forty percent of who are used cobalt comes from congo in 2016 the chinese company was called out by an ngo it was branded a benefactor of child labor huayou pledged to clean up its act but did anything change on the ground reports raise serious doubts this is one part of the story there is blood in china's large-scale minds too there workers are abused discriminated beaten and made to work without contracts and sufficient ration one worker told the media and i'm quoting if a worker dies the chinese don't report it to the government they bury the person hiding the corpse and bribe the family to keep quiet that's your electric car killing people even before it hits the road did you sign up for this the world's biggest car makers are complicit in these crimes i'm talking about the likes of tesla volvo renault mercedes-benz volkswagen they all source cobalt from chinese mines in congo sure they claim to have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to child labor but they too know that there is no way to fully map their supply chains back in congo president felix shishikedi has pledged to act in 2019 he established a state-run company to focus on health and human rights but that hardly helps when congolese officials are accused of overseeing child labour in 2020 tesla announced it would start using cobalt free lithium-ion batteries in its electric vehicles but the company followed up the announcement with a deal with glencore it's a cobalt mining company and this deal was for six thousand tons of cobalt a year 6000 tons a year doesn't add up does it much like the claim of electric cars being clean these cars run on dirty energy on blood batteries and this is not climate solution this is human rights abuse and the two cannot coexist climate solution is not supposed to be at the expense of human lives long story short electric vehicles have miles to go before they can claim to be cleaned [Music]

Channel: WION

Views: 3,959,115

Keywords: electric vehicles, electric cars, electric vehicle, electric car, electric, renewable energy electric vehicles, are electric cars really green?, electric cars 2022, worst electric car, new electric vehicles, are electric vehicles safe?, electric vehicles 2019, electric vehicles 2020, best electric vehicles, electric vehicles 2022, 2022 electric vehicles, top 10 electric vehicles, Are Electric Vehicles really clean?, Palki Sharma Upadhyay, Gravitas Plus, blood batteries, WION

Id: RFHvq-8np1o

Length: 9min 9sec (549 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 10 2022