professor of African and Afro-American studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Permanent representative of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the United Nations since 2022.PRES. JOE BIDEN: I've signed a historic piece of legislation here in the United States that includes the biggest, most important climate commitment we have ever made in the history of our country.
CHRISTOPHER POLLON: Especially if you look at the environmental and social costs of becoming a smelting and mining and battery hub to the world.This is their ancestral land, and they don't want this to happen.DAVID ROBERTS: There is no math about the new demand for these minerals. ERNEST SCHEYDER: Cobalt is a bluish metal that, when added to an electric vehicle battery, can help reduce rare yet spontaneous combustions known to scientists as thermal runaway. The Democratic Republic of the Congo holds the world's largest supplies of this key metal. And it's the largest producer.
The 103 million people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo live in one of the five poorest nations in the world, according to the UN. More than 60% of its people live on less than $2.15 a day. But they live in one of the world’s most resource-rich nations. The ground beneath their feet holds almost unimaginable value.
CHAKRABARTI: The Democratic Republic of the Congo has one of the most tragic histories of any nation on the African continent. It suffered brutal atrocities for almost a century under Belgian rule. After independence in 1960, the country was repeatedly shattered by secessionist movements, assassinations, and dictatorship. Beginning in 1996, two Congo wars killed almost six million people.
MWANGE : With minerals, there is cash. You can make money with this line of work, other jobs don’t pay as much.MWANGE : We began to notice that a lot of your young women were leaving the city to work in the mines. When they returned to the home, they had money, but after a while, they would get sick and die. We didn’t know what they were doing in the mines.
In the United States, President Biden has called for the U.S. to make major strides forward in green energy, and cut its emissions in half by 2030. By that year, cobalt demand is expected to double from current levels.Mama Nicole’s son did. Deomba was 13 years old when the mine he was in collapsed, burying Deomba and his friend alive.
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