The world’s rush for clean energy depends on a mineral that often comes from dangerous places and fragile lives.
3 Narratives News | October 9, 2025 (Pacific Time)
“We dig so our children might eat,” said Jean-Paul, a miner from Kolwezi. “But the dust takes their breath away.”
Context
Across the world, electric cars and renewable energy are seen as a path to a cleaner future. Governments set deadlines to end gasoline engines. Companies race to build better batteries. Behind this promise is a metal many people never see, cobalt. It helps make lithium-ion batteries stable and powerful. About seventy percent of the world’s supply comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, a nation that still struggles with poverty and conflict [Reuters] [Reuters analysis]. As demand grows, Congo has moved to tighter controls, including an export-quota system due to start on October 16, 2025, after a months-long freeze meant to lift prices [Reuters].
The Green Dream
Across much of the West, the shift to clean energy feels like the most hopeful project of our time. Electric cars glide quietly through city streets. Rooftops shine with solar panels. Charging stations rise beside highways once ruled by gas pumps. To those driving this change, each battery and motor carries a piece of the future.
“We are building freedom from oil,” said Franz von Holzhausen, Tesla’s chief designer, when unveiling the 2025 Model 3 upgrade in Austin. “Our goal has always been a sustainable future for everyone, and we’re closer than ever.” At Apple’s headquarters, Lisa Jackson, vice president for Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives, said in May 2025, “Every device we sell should help the planet, not harm it. That is our responsibility.”
Across the Atlantic, policymakers share that conviction. The European Commission confirmed that the bloc remains on course for its target of one hundred percent zero-emission sales for new cars by 2035. “This is Europe’s industrial moment,” said EU climate chief Wopke Hoekstra. “We can protect the planet and create new jobs at the same time.” Canada’s federal plan mirrors that goal, with rebates that help families who once saw electric cars as a luxury.
On a suburban street in Vancouver, Sarah McLeod watched neighbors plug in their cars for the night. “It feels good knowing we’re part of something bigger,” she said. “When my kids ask what I did about climate change, I can say, at least we tried.” In Oslo, where most new cars are electric, taxi driver Ahmed Khalil said he saves money and breathes easier. “No oil smell, no noise, less stress,” he laughed. “I see more people smile in traffic now.”
To support this movement, investors pour billions into battery factories and renewable grids. Startups in California and Sweden race to build faster-charging cells. Car companies compete to announce greener models. Environmental groups call it a moral duty. “Decarbonization is no longer a dream,” said Christiana Figueres, former UN climate chief, at the 2025 Clean Energy Forum in Paris. “It is our shared mission.”
In this world, every new battery is a small victory against climate risk. Companies highlight progress. Many have joined the Global Battery Alliance and adopted the Battery Passport to trace minerals from mine to product. Tesla, Apple, and Mercedes publish supplier audits meant to stop child labor and unsafe mining. European and North American firms promote “clean cobalt,” verified by independent inspectors. To consumers, the message feels clear: technology, responsibility, and innovation can work together to save the planet.
The Dark Earth
In the heart of Congo’s Lualaba province, the story looks nothing like the glossy images of electric cars and clean skies. Here, the air smells of metal. Red dust coats the leaves, the walls, even the skin. From dawn to dusk, people climb into narrow pits with shovels, hammers, and plastic bowls. They are called artisanal miners, and there are thousands of them. Men, women, and children work side by side, digging through rock to find blue-gray ore that the world calls cobalt.
“I start at sunrise,” said Marie Kalenga, a mother of three from Kolwezi. “If I fill one sack, I can buy rice and soap. If I find nothing, we eat nothing.” Her husband died two years ago when a tunnel collapsed after heavy rain. She still works in the same pit because there is nowhere else to go. “This place feeds us,” she said softly. “It also kills us.”
According to Amnesty International, unsafe conditions and forced evictions continue around many industrial and informal mining zones. Child labor remains a risk in smaller pits. In Kolwezi and Tenke, children as young as ten carry rocks in baskets or wash ore by hand. A 2025 Reuters investigation found that minerals from some artisanal sites still flow into global supply chains, despite company promises of clean sourcing.
“We cannot stop the children,” said Pastor Jean Mutombo, who runs a small church near Fungurume. “They work because their parents cannot find other jobs. If they do not work, they do not eat.” Around his chapel, he said, the ground is stained blue from waste rock. “The Bible says dust we are, and to dust we shall return. But this dust burns our lungs.”
Health workers see the toll. At the provincial hospital in Kolwezi, nurse Lucie Kapinga said cases of chronic cough and skin infections are rising. “We have children who cough up gray mucus,” she explained. “They play on piles of tailings and breathe what we breathe.” A 2022 study by the University of Lubumbashi found elevated levels of cobalt and lead in the blood of people living near mines, especially children [Scientific review].
Those who try to organize safer work face new challenges. Local cooperatives were meant to protect small-scale miners, but many lack tools or official licenses. “We asked for helmets, masks, and clean water,” said Jean-Paul Kaseba, a cooperative leader. “We were told to wait for next year’s budget.” Others speak of corruption that drains money meant for communities. A recent audit found that several mining firms underreported more than one billion dollars in revenue that should have supported social projects [Reuters, Oct 2025].
The government in Kinshasa has announced new export quotas meant to stabilize prices and limit fraud. On the ground, miners say little has changed. “Quotas or not, we still dig,” said Kalenga. “We do not know who buys it or where it goes. We only know we must find enough to survive.”
When night falls, the pits turn quiet. Small fires flicker across the hillside. Some miners wash their hands in polluted streams, others pray for better luck tomorrow. The cobalt they collect will travel thousands of kilometers before it becomes part of a phone, a car, or a solar battery. Few will ever know the hands that brought it to light.
The Silent Story
Between the dreams of clean technology and the dust of the mine, some people simply want to live. In Kolwezi, nurse Angélique Mukendi begins her day before sunrise. She walks past wooden stalls and open drains, past piles of blue rock, to a clinic built from shipping containers. “Most of our patients work in the mines,” she said. “They come with cuts, coughs, and infections. Many are children.” The clinic has only one X-ray machine. When it breaks, they send patients home with painkillers and hope.
Dr. Mukendi and others have watched illness grow with the mines. “We used to treat malaria and childbirth,” she explained. “Now we treat poison.” Her records show more lung disease, skin lesions, and anemia linked to cobalt dust. “People think the danger is far away,” she said. “For us, the danger is in the air.”
A few streets away, teacher Joseph Mbayo keeps a class of forty students in a room with no glass in the windows. He teaches French, math, and science on a chalkboard darkened by dust. “Half of my pupils have worked in the mines,” he said. “Some come to school only when the pit closes after rain.” UNICEF estimates that many children in southern Congo miss school regularly because of mining work [UNICEF, 2024]. Mbayo keeps teaching anyway. “They are smart,” he smiled. “They can build more than tunnels if someone gives them a chance.”
In nearby Musonoi, a women’s cooperative has turned part of an abandoned pit into farmland. “We wanted to show that life can grow from this soil too,” said Chantal Kasongo, who leads the group. They plant cassava and vegetables, then sell them in the market. The ground is poor, but the idea has spread. Other women weave mats or repair tools for miners instead of entering the pits. “We do not ask for pity,” Chantal said. “We ask for a price that respects our lives.”
Local churches and youth groups collect dust samples to test for contamination, working with a nonprofit in Kinshasa that helps them publish results online. “It is our proof,” said Father Alain Tshibanda, who runs a small parish near Tenke. “When companies say they are clean, we show them the color of our rivers.”
Beyond Congo, quiet solidarity is forming. Students in Belgium and Canada run trace-your-battery campaigns, asking brands to disclose where their minerals come from. Some investors press companies to publish full supply maps. “It is slow,” said Ida N’Goma, a Congolese environmental lawyer in Brussels. “Each question forces an answer that used to be ignored.”
Economists call this the resource curse. People here call it something else: survival. They do not see themselves as enemies of the green future, only as those who have been left out of its promise. “We are not against electric cars,” said Chantal.
“We just want our children to live long enough to drive one.”
At dusk, the sun turns the hills copper red. Children play on the edges of the pits, tossing stones that glitter like stars in the fading light. From a distance, the hum of a generator sounds like a heartbeat. This is the quiet center of the world’s clean future, still waiting for justice to arrive.
Key Takeaways
- About seventy percent of global cobalt supply comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, as of October 2025 [Reuters].
- Artisanal miners face extreme risks for very low pay, and child labor remains a documented problem in parts of the sector [Amnesty] [Reuters].
- Clean-cobalt and traceability programs exist, yet transparency and enforcement remain uneven [Global Battery Alliance].
- Congo’s export quotas begin October 16, 2025, after an export freeze meant to stabilize prices and curb fraud [Reuters].
- Analysts see demand rising with EV growth, and a possible market deficit in the early 2030s if supply and refining do not keep pace [Reuters].
Questions This Article Answers
- Why is cobalt central to today’s batteries and clean energy?
- What are conditions like in Congo’s mining areas?
- How do minerals travel from small pits to global brands?
- Are clean-cobalt programs enough to change ground realities?
- What policies could make this transition safer and fairer for Congolese communities?
Sources
- Reuters analysis, Oct 9, 2025: Congo’s export controls and price effects
- Reuters, Oct 6, 2025: Exporters face permanent bans under new quotas
- Reuters, May 14, 2025: Cobalt Institute outlook
- International Energy Agency, 2025: Global Critical Minerals Outlook
- Amnesty International, 2023: Abuses near industrial mines
- Amnesty International, 2016: Child labor risks in cobalt mining
- Nkulu et al., 2018: Health impacts of artisanal cobalt mining
- Muimba-Kankolongo, 2022: Trace-metals pollution in the Copperbelt
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Sebastian Meyer
Traveled to Congo and photographed the cobalt industry. See his work at the Pulitzer Center: Photographing Congo’s Cobalt Empire.
