China corners the market in cobalt, the metal necessary for green mobility and mined using child labour

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Cobalt ensures that laptops, smartphones and e-cars do not run out of power.  However, most of the metal comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo - and is mined under questionable conditions.

The biggest geo-political crises are often visible in the smallest ways.  In times of inflation, climate change and war in Ukraine, for many people this is the number after the decimal point on the fuel gauge.  A new form of mobility seems more urgent than ever: it should be green, clean and compatible with the planet, people and wallets.  After all, the transport sector is responsible for around 14 percent of global CO₂ emissions.  E-cars have long been considered the most obvious solution to this problem: in 2019, around 2.1 million purely electrically-powered cars were sold worldwide.

But green mobility also has a dark side.  It is a story about greed, self-determination and exploitation.  It's about non-transparent supply chains, human rights violations and the question of what mobility should look like in the future. Moreover, at the heart of all this is a coveted metal, hidden in an inconspicuous ore: cobalt.

The metal is one of several raw materials needed to power an electric car.  It increases the energy density in the cathode of a car battery - and thus its service life.  Up to 15 kilos of the metal are to be found in the battery of an average electric car.  However, the technology is not as clean as car companies like to claim in their marketing.  The production of the batteries is raw material-intensive and the recycling rate is low.  However, the biggest problem is in the supply chains - and the extraction of the metal in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

A good half of the world's cobalt deposits lie undisturbed in the country's red soil.  Two thirds of the metal mined each year comes from there.  The "cobalt-copper belt", a stretch of land bursting with mineral resources, stretches over 800 kilometres through the south-east of the Congo and through Zambia.

A consequential deal

This wealth of raw materials has been arousing greed for centuries - first that of the Belgian King and brutal colonialist Leopold II, then that of the dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Sekos, supported by the Western powers.  The Congo Wars followed, which completely broke the country economically and socially.  It was not until 2001 that the Democratic Republic obtained a democratically-elected President again in the person of Joseph Kabila.  The young nation lacked infrastructure - roads, schools, hospitals.  However, Kabila was aware of the interest in his country's natural resources and concluded a momentous deal in Spring 2008. Together with three state-owned Chinese companies - the hydropower company, Sinohydro, the EXIM Bank and the China Railway Group - the Congo founded the joint venture company, Sicomines. Congo holds 32 percent with its state-owned mining company, Gécamines, and China 68 percent.

The deal provided for China to invest in Congolese infrastructure – and, in return, receive mining rights in the mines.  China was given access to 10 million tons of copper and 600,000 tons of cobalt for the construction of 6,600 kilometres of roads, two hospitals and two universities.  In addition, there are countless tons more underground.

 

The proceeds from the mining of copper and cobalt are intended to finance the infrastructure projects and at the same time contribute to the modernization of the mines.  Until the mining brought in money, China advanced the funds for the construction projects.  In principle, the Congo took on a debt with its new partner – and agreed to pay it off with natural resources.  Until this initial loan is paid off, Sicomines profits are tax free.  The Congo is therefore still not making a profit while the raw material is being shipped to China by the ton.

There it is processed into pure cobalt metal and ends up in the batteries of smartphones, laptops and electric cars from well-known manufacturers.  Nowhere is the cobalt processing industry stronger than in China.  This is not least due to "Made in China 2025", a strategic economic plan for the country.  Ten key industries are to be systematically upgraded within ten years.  This includes electrical equipment and e-mobility.  Cobalt is essential to these industries and so is China's presence in Congo.  Intricate constructs of Chinese parent and subsidiary companies hold stakes in 15 of the country's 19 major industrial mines.

Come empty-handed, leave with full pockets

An example of China's systematic approach in the Congo is Tenke Fungurume, the second largest cobalt mine in the world.  Within three years, the mining company, China Molybdenum bought 80 percent of the mine, partly with state funds.  Its former owner, a US corporation, left the country.  Tenke Fungurume is now seen as an important building block of Chinese control over the cobalt supply chain.

But Félix Tshisekedi, Kabila's successor as President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, has repeatedly criticized the deal: "They come to our country empty-handed and call themselves entrepreneurs.  Then they leave with full pockets and we remain poor." Last August, he appointed a commission to examine current and past deals with foreign corporations.  If new reserves are found on the site of a mine, taxes are due to the Congolese government.  China Molybdenum is suspected of not reporting such newly discovered deposits.  In February 2022, a court temporarily stripped the group of control of Tenke Fungurume while the allegations are being investigated.

Contracts with other mining companies are also currently under strict review.  In April, the Congolese government announced a possible renegotiation with multi-national Glencore.  It owns Mutanda, the largest cobalt mine in the world.

The Shadow Industry

But while the big mines are the playing pieces in the geo-political race for economic dominance, a second industry has grown in their shadow.  The photos used by mining companies to advertise their mines show men in neon safety vests and goggles.  Each of them is wearing a yellow hard hat, some are giving thumbs up signs.  Congolese, Chinese and other international workers work together here, and safety standards are high.

However, the people who are responsible for a large part of the cobalt exported annually cannot be seen in these pictures.  In international parlance, they are euphemistically called "artisanal small-scale miners".  They call themselves "creuseurs", meaning diggers.  They are men, women and also children who work inside and on the outskirts of the large industrial mines.  Estimates vary, but the Congolese government believes they mine a fifth of the cobalt exported annually.

The work of the "creuseurs" is mostly illegal - and life-threatening.  They dig with simple tools, without protective clothing and in shafts that are not properly secured.  Groups of them repeatedly invade the site of the industrial mines, while others dig in the adjacent area or exploit the remains of official production.  The Congo's soil is so rich that the tailings, the by-products of the mines, still contain more cobalt than all the soil of other nations.

The "creuseurs" are looking for a motley ore containing copper, cobalt and small amounts of nickel.  The copper minerals glow green-blue, pink spots are produced by cobalt.  Many artisanal miners follow the course of this ore in the ground rather than digging regular pits.  The tunnels that wind their way into the earth are unstable and mostly hardly secured if at all.  They regularly collapse on the workers.  In the summer of 2019, 41 people died in such an accident on the outskirts of the industrial KOV mine west of Kolwezi.

Working with the mineral also has other dangers.  Basically, says Frank Melcher from the Montanuniversität Leoben, the ore in the Congo is "relatively clean" - that is, it contains few toxic substances.  However, the dust that is produced when mining in the mine shafts and crushing the cobalt-bearing ore damages the lungs.  It is deposited in the airways and the surrounding tissue is scarred.  Silicosis, the resulting lung disease, is not curable.

Despite these dangers, illegal mining is an important source of income for many Congolese families. Almost two thirds of the population live below the poverty line.  In the provinces of Lualaba and Haut-Katanga alone, which form the mining region, 1.3 million children between the ages of five and 17 do not go to school.  Although child labour is officially banned in Congo, UNICEF ​​estimates that up to 40,000 children work in opencast mines.

Most of them are between 13 and 15 years old, according to Ramatou Toure, UNICEF's regional director for child protection.  Again and again, there are clearly younger people on site.  "Especially when the shafts are narrow, miners use very young children because only they can get underground," says Toure.  However, mostly the children carry sacks full of ore, sort the minerals or cook for the workers.  Since many "creuseurs" move around in groups and set up camp at ever new mines, it is hardly possible for NGOs and authorities to undertake checks.

Toure speaks of a culture of impunity.  In addition to physical and financial exploitation, girls in particular are also exposed to sexual violence on the edge of the mines.  A classic case is that a girl is recruited as a cook - and then is exposed to abuse on the spot without any protection.  There is no way to defend yourself.  "As if a girl accuses the perpetrator, she no longer has any income," says Toure.  Many of the children who work in the mines support their families with the wages.

"Most of these children are deprived of their childhood.  Many do not go to school and do not receive an education," says Toure.  "Then when they grow up, they have very limited options in life, and the cycle repeats itself."  Toure is therefore critical of seals on end products that promise a supply chain free of child labour.  "These are great initiatives," she says.  "But they're only half the equation." The affected children need educational opportunities - and life perspectives away from the opencast mine.

A shadow over green mobility

The NGO, Amnesty International and its Congolese partners have been campaigning for transparent supply chains for years.  This is because the knowledge of where and from whose hands the cobalt comes is currently being lost in many intermediate steps.  The "creuseurs" bring the ore to local depots, where traders - mostly Chinese - buy it up.  They have it transported in smelters and then resell the intermediate products.  There is a lack of control, the documentation is often incomplete.

However, by 2017, none of the 29 companies had fully complied with a request to introduce measures developed by Amnesty.  In the e-car industry, Amnesty found even more serious failures than among manufacturers of smartphones and laptops.  None of the companies have disclosed the identity of their partners in smelting and refining - or specific risks and abuses in their supply chains.  According to the report, Daimler and Renault bring up the rear in terms of transparency, while BMW and Tesla have taken at least moderate measures.

Hesitant regulation

A new EU regulation should therefore soon force manufacturers to comply with human rights standards along the supply chain.  In addition, recycling should take some pressure off the cobalt mines.  The material is actually easy to recycle, and from 2027, 90 percent of the cobalt in the EU should end up in new batteries.  However, until a circular economy for cobalt is established, the world will still need a lot of fresh cobalt.

Maybe more than there is.  If the industry continues to grow as before, the known cobalt reserves could be exhausted in around ten years, analysts warn.  In the past, many manufacturers have already reduced the cobalt content in their batteries and in the long term it should also be possible to do without cobalt altogether.

Actually, cobalt should be a conflict mineral, says Melcher.  Then there would be their own supervisory bodies and laws to ensure clean mining.  However, that has not happened to this day. And so, a system still exists around the industrial mines where exploitation, child labour and violence are the norm.  Yet it is a system that provides twenty percent of the cobalt that Congo exports to the world annually.  It is profitable - and casts a dark shadow over green mobility.