Abstract:The global push for electric vehicles (EVs) has sharply increased demand for critical minerals such as cobalt and lithium, creating a tension between rapid industrial growth and long-term sustainability. Extraction is concentrated in a few regions -- notably the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Chile, and Argentina -- where it has produced serious socio-environmental harms, including ecosystem degradation, labour exploitation, and the displacement of Indigenous communities. In the DRC, cobalt mining is frequently linked to child labour and hazardous working conditions; in Chile, lithium extraction intensifies water scarcity and threatens local agriculture and biodiversity. Policy instruments such as the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) seek to promote ethical sourcing, but an extraction-driven model continues to deepen global inequalities. This chapter examines the contested temporalities of the transition, in which the short-term economic incentives of extraction conflict with longer-term environmental and social goals. It argues for a place-based framework built on community-centred governance, sustainable mining practices, and circular-economy strategies, including recycling and material substitution, to align resource security with equity and ensure that the shift to EVs does not reproduce the injustices it aims to address.
| Comments: | 31 Pages, 2 Figures |
| Subjects: | Systems and Control (eess.SY); General Economics (econ.GN); Applications (stat.AP); Other Statistics (stat.OT) |
| Cite as: | arXiv:2605.24356 [eess.SY] |
| (or arXiv:2605.24356v1 [eess.SY] for this version) | |
| https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2605.24356 arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) |
From: Joseph Nyangon PhD [view email]
[v1]
Sat, 23 May 2026 02:35:08 UTC (873 KB)
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