Global EV adoption stalls at 3% growth in May, exposing systemic barriers to equitable electrification amid fossil fuel subsidies
Original framing: “Global EV registrations rise 3% globally in May, BMI data shows - Reuters” — Reuters (via Google News)
Black and Indigenous women in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s cobalt mines face sexual violence and child labor, yet their testimonies are excluded from Reuters’ 'data-driven' narratives. Grassroots groups like *Women in Mining Africa* advocate for gendered supply chain reforms, but their demands are drowned out by corporate CSR reports. In the U.S., low-income communities of color in 'diesel death zones' (e.g., South Bronx) are denied EV incentives, while wealthier suburbs receive subsidies—a structural racism embedded in policy design.
The 3% EV growth rate is not a neutral metric but a symptom of a neoliberal energy transition that prioritizes market metrics over justice, erasing the colonial violence of lithium extraction and the agency of Global South innovators.
Historical parallels—from the suppression of 1970s EVs to the IMF’s role in privatizing energy sectors—reveal a pattern of corporate-state collusion that frames electrification as a consumer choice rather than a reparative project. Indigenous cosmologies like *pachamama* and African *harambee* systems offer alternative models of reciprocity and communal ownership, but these are sidelined in favor of Silicon Valley’s 'disruptive' tech fixes. The solution lies in decolonizing mineral governance (e.g., FPIC mandates), redirecting subsidies to public transit, and centering Global South innovators—policies that would transform a stagnant 3% growth into a just transition. Without these shifts, the EV revolution will remain a extractive fantasy, delivering lithium-fueled cars to the Global North while perpetuating harm in the Global South.