Environment

Ripples of colonialism: Study says decarbonization strategies perpetuate human rights inequalities

Near the city of Lubumbashi, bags of crude cobalt hydroxide are awaiting overland transport to African ports before being shipped to China. Credit: Brandon Marc Finn, University of Michigan

A University of Michigan study of a city in the Democratic Republic of the Congo found that the processes required to decarbonize are repeating and recreating colonial-era inequalities.

Researchers argue that the human rights violations associated with modern cobalt mining, such as child labor, social ostracism, and structural marginalization, are a new form of old colonial practices. Their research is published in the journal Cities.

“We show how colonial practices emerged through the creation of mining companies and the establishment of the city of Lubumbashi, and how the copper and cobalt mining boom is a new form of these old practices. “We also show that,” said lead author Brandon Mark. Finn is a research assistant in the UM School of Environmental Sustainability.

“We need these minerals for decarbonisation, but I think it’s also important to understand and confront the neo-colonial model that is being played out on the ground as we pursue these materials. ”

Lubumbashi is the capital of Haut-Katanga, the southernmost province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Lubumbashi, originally named Elizabethville, was founded by Belgian colonialists in 1910. The city was founded due to its proximity to natural resources, especially copper.

Finn and co-author Patrick Kovinna from the University of Melbourne wanted to trace Lubumbashi’s colonial roots and connect them with contemporary practices. In scrutinizing historical documents, researchers found that mining today, just as it did at the beginning of cities, relies on child labor, workers who mine by hand in dangerous conditions, and that the mining industry found that the wealth derived from the country is flowing to political elites and foreigners. mining company.

The use of child labor in mining is older than the city itself, a study has found. Finn cited an 1890 decree signed by King Leopold II of Belgium that gave Belgian government officials guardianship of children considered orphans and foundlings. These children were conscripted into the military until they turned 25 at the discretion of the Belgian state in exchange for “subsistence, food, lodging, and free medical care.”

Much of this work is likely to have been in the pursuit of commodities, such as mining copper from the area or extracting rubber elsewhere in the country. Belgian colonial control of the city also laid the foundations for who owned the land, in this case the Belgian mining companies that extracted vast tracts of land. Within 20 years of the city’s existence, the region became the world’s fifth largest exporter of copper and helped electrify the world.

In the late 20th century, Lubumbashi played an important role in uranium mining, Finn says. Finn, based on the book “The Spy in the Congo” by Susan Williams, links the same mining company (UMHK) that owned the copper mining rights to the uranium deposits used in the Manhattan Project.

The program used Congo’s uranium to make the atomic bomb that was dropped on Japan in 1945. Some of this uranium was mined by hand. Today, many small-scale miners dig minerals out of the ground by hand or through the DRC’s mine waste piles.

The city is now close to another material essential to global decarbonization: cobalt. Cobalt is required in many lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and renewable energy systems. In 2020, the southern Democratic Republic of the Congo produced more than 69% of the world’s total mined cobalt. In the same year, approximately 2% of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s cobalt mining production was produced using child labor.

Congolese artisans and small-scale miners still sort and extract minerals by hand, Finn said. Most of the DRC’s cobalt mining workforce, estimated to be as high as 98%, is engaged in labor-intensive “artisanal” mining, which produces between 9 and 20% of the country’s total cobalt production. I’m doing it. Mr Finn cited research showing that modern miners and mining communities in Katanga province have lower life expectancies, higher infant mortality rates and higher rates of HIV, tuberculosis and respiratory diseases.

“It is important to trace the lineage of these extractive practices and socio-economic inequalities back to the early colonial era. Decarbonization requires these minerals, but they are not compatible with the neo-colonial arrangements that exist on the ground. We need to fight,” he said. “For decarbonization to be fair, we must fight with justice across time and space. This region has had a huge impact on global geopolitical events.”

Finn argues that as the world considers decarbonisation, it must also attend to the people and places historically involved in extracting minerals for global consumption. “We can urgently draw attention to neo-colonial modes of exploitation and exploitation, even as we advance decarbonisation.”

“I think we need to address these kinds of larger structural issues. It’s important to hold Congo’s political elites accountable,” he said. “And mining companies in Switzerland, South Africa and China, often supported by the Chinese state, are deserving of strong criticism for accelerating extraction without returning sufficient wealth and technology to local people. I think we should embrace decarbonization, but don’t let it happen through neocolonialism.”

Further information: Brandon Marc Finn et al., Lubumbashi and Cobalt: African Cities at the Crossroads of Global Decarbonization and Neocolonialism (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.cities.2024.105521

Provided by University of Michigan

Citation: Ripples of colonialism: Decarbonization strategies perpetuate human rights inequalities, research report (October 25, 2024).html

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