Report on forced labor, child labor raises tough questions in green energy transition

A new report from the Department of Labor raises tough questions about whether and to what extent forced labor and child labor are intertwined with climate-friendly technology.

The department released a report this month finding that several minerals that are key components of electric vehicles and solar panels may be produced through these unethical labor practices.

The findings point to major ethical quandaries surrounding the ongoing energy transition. Climate change, if not addressed, endangers many of the world's most vulnerable people. At the same time, the report raises serious human rights concerns about the technology being used to address it. 

“There are supply chains where there are certain bottlenecks in countries with a very bad performance when it comes to human rights,” said Tom Moerenhout, a research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. 

“The ethics of that is critical not just for a government [that] is trying to direct public policy in an ethical way, but also often for consumers and companies,” Moerenhout added.

The new report stated forced labor is involved in the extraction of Chinese aluminum and silicon, Indonesian nickel and cobalt from Congo. It said child labor was being used to mine the aforementioned cobalt as well as copper from Congo and Zambia, Zambian manganese, Zimbabwean lithium and inputs used for South Korean Indium. 

It also highlighted labor concerns regarding the supply chain for certain Chinese products, saying Chinese lithium-ion batteries were produced with minerals from Congo that used child labor and/or forced labor.

The global transition away from planet-warming fossil fuels and toward more climate-friendly renewables and electric vehicles, often called the energy transition, is driving up demand for such minerals, which are used in technologies like electric vehicles, batteries and power lines.

The International Energy Agency has projected that by 2040, demand for lithium could grow by more than 40 times, while demand for cobalt and nickel could grow by about 20 times to 25 times. Copper demand is projected to more than double during the same period.

The U.S. does not necessarily get the majority of its imports of these metals from the countries in question, but they’re still major global suppliers. 

For example, 46 percent of U.S. nickel imports come from Canada, but half of the nickel mined worldwide in 2023 came from Indonesia. And while major suppliers of U.S. cobalt imports include Norway, Canada, Finland and Japan, most of the world’s cobalt comes from Congo.

Abigail Hunter, executive director of the Center for Critical Minerals Strategy at energy security think tank SAFE, said this means that even if the U.S. isn’t directly importing the minerals, it is still likely importing items that contain them. 

“That means we are importing embedded material—which is almost always going through China for further transformation—AND that we have less leverage over how the material is extracted, including if it is extracted with forced, child, or forced child labor,” Hunter said in a written statement to The Hill. 

Lithium-ion batteries represent one mineral-based product that the U.S. imports from China. 

However, Hunter said that by participating in the energy transition, the U.S. can try to curb the use of unethical labor. 

“The clean energy transition, which is driving US demand for these materials to new horizons, presents the opportunity for us to engage directly and encourage a shift away [from] these practices as a demand source and investor,” she said. 

Experts have noted one way to tackle the issue is by improving requirements for supply chain traceability. 

A major renewable power trade group says that the industry makes investments in such tracing to avoid using minerals extracted using forced labor. 

“The clean energy sector invests heavily in supply chain tracing tools, supply chain audits, and supplier selection and commitments that support the industry’s efforts to avoid buying materials made with forced labor,” said MJ Shiao, vice president of supply chain and manufacturing at the American Clean Power Association, in a written statement.

But trying to trace the minerals through supply chains also comes with challenges, experts said.

After minerals are sourced, they need to be refined for use in energy technologies, and the vast majority of mineral refining occurs in China. 

“Once that cobalt goes into … a refining phase you can't differentiate where it came from,” said Gracelin Baskaran, director of the Project on Critical Minerals Security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 

Beyond traceability, some have also suggested a tax on minerals extracted with child and slave labor. 

“If [a] material is going to be produced in a manner that violates labor and safety standards, that material should be …. tariffed at a higher rate,” said Greg Wischer, founder of consulting firm Dei Gratia Minerals. 

But he noted implementing such tariffs could have “trade-offs” because it could reduce demand for minerals from already low-income countries, worsening conditions on the ground. 

Meanwhile, experts say the issues with the mineral supply chains do not make a case against taking action to mitigate climate change.

Baskaran noted the Labor Department report raised concerns about workers' rights in some of “the same African countries that are hit with some of the worst droughts in the world” and that could be particularly vulnerable to climate change.

“We can't not go through the transition, because that's also going to cost millions of lives,” she said, adding that the issues should be addressed “in parallel.”