APPG 2030 Ban

Fair Fuel APPG for UK Motorists and UK Hauliers August 2021 Page | 46 Two holes sink to a dizzying depth in Tabue Joseph’s Garden, where scrawny chickens peck at the earth. “A few years ago, a local guy was digging a latrine in his yard and came across cobalt, so we all started,” he said. Kanena knew how dangerous the job was. “I knew it was risky, particularly these days when it is raining,” she said. “But there is no other work.” On February 28, when Alain did not come home, she went to the hospital. “I found his dead body and collapsed crying,” she said. There were nine bodies in all. But no accident was reported. According to Kashal, accidents are often kept secret: “They know the government and other partners may use it as an excuse to close the artisan mines and take over the land.” Climate Colonialism and the EU’s Green Deal By employing corporate solutions for climate change, the EU’s Green Deal will entrench further European neo-colonial practices. Al Jazeera 17 report that the push for greener sources of energy, particularly in the Global North, is driving the demand for metals like nickel, cobalt and lithium. As discussed above, labourers in mining communities working to extract these metals face dangerous and degrading working conditions. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the use of child labour in cobalt mines is widespread, putting the lives of children at risk, damaging their health and depriving them of education. In Bolivia, Chile and Argentina, lithium mining uses large quantities of water, accelerating desertification and polluting underground waters and rivers, putting the health of local communities at risk. According to data gathered by London-based NGO Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, there have been 304 complaints of human rights violations by 115 companies mining these minerals. EV Battery Charging Safety The (LIB) Lithium-ion battery is combustible and can catch fire, it has power cells that can cause short-circuiting if it is damaged. The plants that power them also produce acids, organic chemicals, and other harmful particulates. This means that because of the way that power is produced for electric vehicles, it is bad for the environment due to the side effects of electricity production. Experts agree that electric cars catch fire less often than gasoline-powered cars, but the duration and intensity of the fires due to the use of lithium-ion battery systems can make the fires in electric cars much harder to put out. The demand for lithium-ion battery powered road vehicles continues to increase around the world. As more of these become operational across the globe, their involvement in traffic accidents and incidents is likely to rise. This can damage the lithium-ion battery and subsequently pose a threat to occupants and responders as well as those involved in vehicle recovery and salvage operations. Collision or crash has the potential to cause the LIB to burn. By dropping a custom-made EV from a height of 20 m it has been shown that certain impact conditions can result in a large amount of smoke being released from the battery followed by a fire. This potential was also observed in the field. “The conditions of mines are terrible,” said Josue Kashal, a lawyer for miners. “Any time a tunnel can collapse, but they just keep going.”