Contested Temporalities in Critical Minerals and Resource Extraction for Electric Vehicles
For policymakers and researchers concerned with just transitions, this chapter critiques current extraction models and proposes a framework to avoid reproducing injustices in the EV supply chain.
This chapter examines the tension between rapid EV-driven demand for critical minerals and long-term sustainability, highlighting socio-environmental harms in extraction regions. It argues for a place-based framework with community governance, sustainable mining, and circular-economy strategies to align resource security with equity.
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.