Diamonds are a girl’s best friend. That is, unless they come from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). By now, everyone knows what Blood Diamonds are. .Now the US State Department is set to flood the world with Blood Batteries after it signed an agreement with Congo and Zambia — two of the most corrupt countries in the world — to secure cobalt and copper supply chains for electric vehicles under the guise of fighting climate change..On January 23 the State Department quietly posted a joint Memorandum of Agreement (MOU) on its website “to facilitate the development of an integrated value chain for the production of electric vehicle (EV) batteries in the DRC and Zambia, ranging from raw material extraction, to processing, manufacturing, and assembly… to facilitate the development of an EV battery value chain that would help the international community reduce carbon emissions and support the Paris Agreement’s aim to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change, including by holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius.”.The agreement paves the way for American investment and possible “technical assistance” to facilitate an “integrated EV value chain.”.This despite the fact the US State Department itself ranks both among the most corrupt human rights abusers in thee world, specifically with respect to child labour. Transparency International ranks Congo 166 out of 180 on its corruption scale, while Zambia is 116th. An insurgency in Congo itself has displaced more than half a million people..It’s even more egregious considering the US Labor Department put similar materials from China’s Xinjiang province — along with Congo — on a 2022 blacklist of goods produced by child or forced labour..Yet the hypocrisy is not so misplaced given that the DRC is home to 70% of the world’s supply of cobalt, an essential ingredient in EV batteries; Zambia has half the world’s copper. According to BP’s annual energy outlook, demand for copper alone is expected to triple by 2040 driven by the world’s push to Net Zero while cobalt demand for EVs is pegged to jump more than 75% by 2026. Demand for lithium is expected to jump 1000 times..It’s all fuelled by an expected five-fold increase in EVs by the end of the decade. In the US alone, revenues are expected to show a compounded annual growth rate of 22.79% by 2027, resulting in $140 billion US in annual revenues, up from $25 billion in 2021. EV sales are expected to reach more than 200,000 units per year within the next five years..Canada is equally complicit, although the size of the domestic market — and the body count — is considerably smaller. Nonetheless, the Trudeau government has mandated that 100% of vehicles sold be zero-emission by 2035 — essentially banning the internal combustion engine — and has poured tens of billions of dollars into subsidizing everything from electric chargers to the purchase of EVs themselves..Ottawa paid out more than $750 million in electric vehicle rebates as of March of last year, or 153% more than the $300 million originally budgeted over the three year program. First introduced in 2019, the Liberal government allowed $5,000 rebates to consumers purchasing EVs up to a limit of $45,000, which has since been raised to $75,000. In April the Liberals extended the program and added an additional $1.6 billion out to 2025. A recent analysis by Blacklock’s Reporter suggested it could cost taxpayers more like $100 billion by the time it’s all said and done..In January Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) shelled out almost $1 billion to non-profit groups, public institutions and local governments and to fund install EV chargers in public places like sidewalks, multi-resident apartment buildings and workplaces to electrify vehicle fleets. That’s notwithstanding another $2.63 billion raised in carbon taxes in 2019-20 — presumably to remove gas powered cars off the road — a figure expected to almost quadruple by 2030 when they hit $170 per tonne of CO2 equivalent. .It’s all notwithstanding Elon Musk’s fall from grace as a darling of the Birkenstock left, even the Woke crowd is starting to get nervous. Last week the notoriously militant University of California, Davis released a report advocating not just a reduction in battery production, but an outright elimination of cars — including EVs — as “an essential strategy to improve the sector’s prospects for timely decarbonization while protecting ecosystems and meeting the demands of global justice.”.Well worth considering the next time you take the moral high ground and pull up next to a Tesla at a traffic light.
Diamonds are a girl’s best friend. That is, unless they come from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). By now, everyone knows what Blood Diamonds are. .Now the US State Department is set to flood the world with Blood Batteries after it signed an agreement with Congo and Zambia — two of the most corrupt countries in the world — to secure cobalt and copper supply chains for electric vehicles under the guise of fighting climate change..On January 23 the State Department quietly posted a joint Memorandum of Agreement (MOU) on its website “to facilitate the development of an integrated value chain for the production of electric vehicle (EV) batteries in the DRC and Zambia, ranging from raw material extraction, to processing, manufacturing, and assembly… to facilitate the development of an EV battery value chain that would help the international community reduce carbon emissions and support the Paris Agreement’s aim to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change, including by holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius.”.The agreement paves the way for American investment and possible “technical assistance” to facilitate an “integrated EV value chain.”.This despite the fact the US State Department itself ranks both among the most corrupt human rights abusers in thee world, specifically with respect to child labour. Transparency International ranks Congo 166 out of 180 on its corruption scale, while Zambia is 116th. An insurgency in Congo itself has displaced more than half a million people..It’s even more egregious considering the US Labor Department put similar materials from China’s Xinjiang province — along with Congo — on a 2022 blacklist of goods produced by child or forced labour..Yet the hypocrisy is not so misplaced given that the DRC is home to 70% of the world’s supply of cobalt, an essential ingredient in EV batteries; Zambia has half the world’s copper. According to BP’s annual energy outlook, demand for copper alone is expected to triple by 2040 driven by the world’s push to Net Zero while cobalt demand for EVs is pegged to jump more than 75% by 2026. Demand for lithium is expected to jump 1000 times..It’s all fuelled by an expected five-fold increase in EVs by the end of the decade. In the US alone, revenues are expected to show a compounded annual growth rate of 22.79% by 2027, resulting in $140 billion US in annual revenues, up from $25 billion in 2021. EV sales are expected to reach more than 200,000 units per year within the next five years..Canada is equally complicit, although the size of the domestic market — and the body count — is considerably smaller. Nonetheless, the Trudeau government has mandated that 100% of vehicles sold be zero-emission by 2035 — essentially banning the internal combustion engine — and has poured tens of billions of dollars into subsidizing everything from electric chargers to the purchase of EVs themselves..Ottawa paid out more than $750 million in electric vehicle rebates as of March of last year, or 153% more than the $300 million originally budgeted over the three year program. First introduced in 2019, the Liberal government allowed $5,000 rebates to consumers purchasing EVs up to a limit of $45,000, which has since been raised to $75,000. In April the Liberals extended the program and added an additional $1.6 billion out to 2025. A recent analysis by Blacklock’s Reporter suggested it could cost taxpayers more like $100 billion by the time it’s all said and done..In January Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) shelled out almost $1 billion to non-profit groups, public institutions and local governments and to fund install EV chargers in public places like sidewalks, multi-resident apartment buildings and workplaces to electrify vehicle fleets. That’s notwithstanding another $2.63 billion raised in carbon taxes in 2019-20 — presumably to remove gas powered cars off the road — a figure expected to almost quadruple by 2030 when they hit $170 per tonne of CO2 equivalent. .It’s all notwithstanding Elon Musk’s fall from grace as a darling of the Birkenstock left, even the Woke crowd is starting to get nervous. Last week the notoriously militant University of California, Davis released a report advocating not just a reduction in battery production, but an outright elimination of cars — including EVs — as “an essential strategy to improve the sector’s prospects for timely decarbonization while protecting ecosystems and meeting the demands of global justice.”.Well worth considering the next time you take the moral high ground and pull up next to a Tesla at a traffic light.
