DRC accounts for 56 per cent of global cobalt reserves, which means it can apply a chokehold on the supply chain at any moment. Its government regularly halts exports to drive up prices. But there is another worry: exploitation of child labourers, unsafe working conditions and domestic conflict are byproducts of the industry in the DRC.
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An estimated 40,000 children, some as young as seven, are exposed to horrific working conditions in DRC cobalt mining operations. Rebel groups inflicting violence and terror on local populations capitalise on a lack of regulation, lack of transparency in licensing agreements and inadequate tracing of minerals once they have left the mines. Amnesty International investigated supply chains in 2016 and found cobalt was being smuggled through mines – one of them controlled by the Chinese mineral giant Huayou Cobalt – to be sold and used for batteries in products made by Apple, Samsung and Sony (among others). Multinationals using these kinds of batteries have since agreed to stamp out the practice and impose more control over supply chains. However, none of the agreements are binding. They don’t carry any penalties.
We’ve known about these problems for decades but, beyond a vague agreement with the European Union to declare our intention to work co-operatively on safer mineral extraction, there are no concrete plans to stamp out child exploitation. Unless we can ensure ethical supply, we are complicit and our leadership on climate is hollow.
Congo is in the midst of one of the most violent periods in a decade. The current spike in killings and displacement is severe. Cobalt mining still feeds the conflict’s economics.
On the surface, the effort to circumvent China’s influence in critical mineral dominance on the global market seems logical. In April, amid a trade war, China cut supply to the US of rare earth minerals necessary for defence projects and tech. China has already built a vertically integrated system in Congo where it either owns or controls most of the mines.
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The challenge for Australia isn’t just repositioning to meet global demand for battery materials, or wooing allies such as the US and UK. We depend on foreign investment, largely from those same partners, to develop cobalt projects, and we still lack the capacity to refine what we mine.
But the stakes are high if we start competing with China. That would aggravate our biggest trading partner. And it could drive down prices by flooding the market. Perhaps even worse, China could retaliate by no longer refining what we send it.
But this is an important next step in our transition away from coal and towards net zero. It is a contradiction for the Australian government to put up its hand to host COP next year, in partnership with the Pacific, while signing off on deals that allow for unethical mining practices in Congo or elsewhere, including extraction of minerals in Australia to the detriment or objection of local Indigenous populations and culture.
Is the next step in our resource-extraction philosophy grounded in short-term gains or a more just transition? The transition to a cleaner, greener future is sullied by dirty cobalt out of Congo. And without our own refining capacity, we might just have started a trade war with our biggest trading partner.
Brooke Boney is a Gamilaroi woman and journalist. She is studying for a master’s of public policy at the University of Oxford, specialising in energy, global conflict and just transition. She is the author of All of it, a collection of essays.
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