holds of a proposed referendum that'll give constitutional recognition to the nation's indigenous people. anthony uneasy spoke at an emotional news conference outlining the plans. australians will vote on it later this year if it passes a panel be set up to advise parliament on issues that impact the lives of aboriginal. now, absence may make the heart grow fonder, but one chinese inventor thinks it shouldn't be left to chance. he's creates a device called long lost touch, which allows love birds to kiss at a distance. shout chombo came up with the idea while separated from his girlfriend during china as strict code 19 locked downs, the silicon lips you sensors to record the use of kisses and send them to a pair device. thousands have been sold as the device went on sale. in january ah, for a check of the headlines here on al jazeera, tick tock,

seo shows each you has testify that a tense u. s. congress. hearing to face questions about the social media platforms, alleged relationship with the chinese communist party. and it's use of data they've been calls to banned me up in several western countries. there are more than a 150000000 americans who love our platform. and we know we have a responsibility to protect them, which is why i'm making the following commitments to you and to all our uses. number one, we will keep safety, particularly for teenagers as a top priority for us. number 2, we will firewall protected, usda from unwanted foreign access. number 3, take talk where we mean a place for free expression and will not be manipulated by any government. al jazeera is investigated unit has found a senior diplomat from zimbabwe, agreeing to launder more than a $1000000000.00 in cash. who but angel was filmed,

meeting al jazeera journalists, posing as chinese gangsters. world athletics has decided to band transgender women from elite female competition. the governing bodies president sebastian co said the decision was made in the interests of fairness and protecting the future of the female category. that been large protest across france in the late to show of anger against president microns planned to raise the retirement age in the city of bordeaux demonstrate to set fire to the fun to the town hall. those days. unrest was some of the worst and 3 months of protests and strikes. the u. s. is carried out what it calls precision air strikes on targets. in eastern syria, the pentagon said the operation came off to 5 american troops were injured down to contract or was killed in a drone attack earlier on thursday. the attack target that a us led coalition based near our house, okay. in the northeast and israel's defense minister has canceled and addressed to the nation after being called into a meeting with prime minister benjamin netanyahu. you have gone to was expected to

call for an end to a controversial overhaul of the judiciary, which is spot months of nationwide protests. but the prime minister is refusing to back down. so those are the headlines. the news continues here on al jazeera, after the st. stitching, thanks a lot, bye for now. russia's invasion of ukraine has prompted, traditionally, mutual countries to apply for nato membership wall street. however, it's showing no interest in joining the alliance. thinking that either you're with us or you're against us. this is a very simplified way of looking at the the austrian foreign minister tombs to well to 0. i am josh rushing. welcome to the stream. electric vehicles have been held as a central to reducing carbon emissions in order to avoid global climate catastrophe

. but as a transition to battery powered vehicles, picks up speed questions remained about the sustainability of the cars and the environmental and social harms that go into making them. so today we ask how sustainable are electric vehicles? first, let's hear from jim warming time at human rights watch with his thoughts. electric cars are definitely part of the solution to climate change. but building and actually cause means we need war materials, things like co lithium, alan, minium and steel. and getting those materials out of the ground through my knee is often really damaging to the environment and to human rights. so as we transform the car industry, we've also got to transform the mining industry transform. the way we source will materials. that means doing a lot more recycling, but it also means treating the ecosystems and communities where these vital wall materials are found, with the respect that those communities and ecosystems deserve. you're wanting us

to discuss alyssa kendall, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the university of california davis in oslo. christina bu secretary general, the norwegian e v association. and with us from london, henry sanderson, author of volt rush, the winners and losers in the race to go green. and of course you, we want you to join this conversation as well. so see that box over there. we have a lie producer waiting to get your comments to me so i can get them to our guest. so how about we do this thing together, right. art, henry, i want to begin with, you. can you set us up here with one why it's important to transition to ease but let's just begin with that. why is it important right now to transition davis? yes. say to reduce carbon emissions and limit the damage from climate change. we need to to carbon eyes pretty much every, every sector. and transportation is one of those key sectors which accounts for

about 1516 percent of global carbon emissions. and as the i p c. c, set this week, we have a window of opportunity. we need to move fast. and what's so important about electric vehicles is we have the technology at scale. now we have a cost of come down a lot. and electric vehicles, i think work for, for most people. so what we need to do now is scale up batteries, scale up electric vehicles and replace the, you know, eventually to 1500000000 vehicles on the road. but it is a massive task ahead of us, but the good news is we have the technology at scale and the costs of come down significantly in considering the environmental news this week, the i p c. c report came out saying that we've got about 10 years left before it may be too late to stop. what's coming this, this transition needs to happen fast. we turned to norway, where i think 80 percent a new car sells their r e v is compare that to the us where it's going bass here,

but when we upped it up by percent of new car sales r e v 's. so my question for you, christina, is, is how does a society transition quickly enough? because i imagine they're all sorts of effects that happen when you shift that quickly. yeah. and just to make sure we talk about the same thing, east 80 percent, even this doesn't include plug in hybrid, it's a full electric cars. and so that was said last year and, and now we're actually yeah. above that as well. so far this year. so and what normally is done is really simple. it's possible to copy for pretty much every country. it's all about green taxes, so it's about taxing and petulant, he sledging cars on, on the sale of the car. and then a not detox e b 's. because evie is i still am more expensive to, to manufacture and therefore consumers, most places can't afford them. and

a norway we've managed to make the prize more or less equal. and that has resulted in an m mays. same development. the last 10 years we've moved from a 3 percent market share to, to above 80. wow. we have some video comments from people in our community this in a min on this, this is from david a right both. he's a senior engineer at union of concerned scientists here listen of us. transportation is the largest cause of he trapping emissions united states and passenger vehicle for the single largest source within that sector. switching from gasoline and diesel cars and trucks to electric vehicles means no tailpipe emissions that are harmful to human health and fuel climate change. even when considering manufacturing electric vehicles are responsible for less than half the lifetime global warming emissions of similar gasoline vehicles. so switching to electric vehicles as soon as possible is critical to avoiding the worst impacts of climate change. so alissa, after a century of being on fossil fuels were cars. it seems like we hopefully of learned

some lessons maybe about the way not to do this. and this is a chance to kind of start over and start over a new what are some things that we should be looking for here for the way that this industry is going to change the automobile industry in the coming years? yeah, that's a great question. so, i mean, i think what we've seen is that the, the world is asking that we don't undertake this transition and moving away from internal combustion engine vehicles to battery powered vehicles without improving our history of the communities at that are affected by the production of vehicles and in particular, the battery for electric vehicles and asking that we do better. and i think we're seeing a movement in many parts of the world, but particularly in europe to really push for up for different rules for how he make batteries and make sure that some of the human rights violations and environmental disasters that are may occur. and that really we,

we prevent that. and so i think that we are, we are looking to make this transition to sort of, to avoid the mistakes of, of the last 100 years as we to undertake this transition. the other thing to point out of course, is that we need to de carbonized our electricity grids along with vehicle electrification. and if, if we couple those together, that's where we get those really deep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants. so this is a 2 pronged effort electrify the fleet, and d carbonite c electricity grids. oh, i want to bring in some comments, offer you to people who are watching this right now. this is from jen jeer, dano, a mystic mentor, says, don't we need gas and oil to make evey's any way. henry, i'm gonna bring that to you. but there's also a video comment that i want to bring in, because it's not just the lithium in the battery. it's other miner's minerals as well. why? coble right down in the congo here. let's check out this video comment 1st. one of the most urgent ethical considerations regarding the manufacturer of electric

vehicles is the mining of cobalt cobalt is used in the battery packs of most electric vehicles and about 3 fourths of the world's supply of cobalt is mind in rather appalling conditions. the democratic republic of the congo, hundreds of thousands of people work in highly toxic hazardous and dangerous conditions to scrounge cobalt out of the ground and feed it up the chain to electric, vehicle manufacturers and big mining companies have destroyed the environment clear cut millions of trees and dump toxic affluence every day into the earth, air, and water in the congo. so, henry, now i want you to talk about the, the problems with this kind of new extraction industry. but i'm gonna play one more video for you as, as perhaps one of the solutions. i'm not sure if you've seen this, but it's this kind of battery passport. and maybe we can talk about that as well. to check out this for the battery passport, create a digital twin of the battery that stores all information about the battery in the

cloud. from where the minerals and metals of the battery are mind and refine to where and how the cells is the battery or me. and where the cells are put together to form the battery that will go into the vehicle. the battery gets an id number, a bar code, and other information which are sent to the digital twin in the cloud. the digital twin hold all the important information about that battery and the battery passport platform holds all of the digital twin from all over the world. are henry, so i need you to reconcile this for me because i read it and see new source all the time. from the congo or you see, you know, kick kids out there to dig this up and really dangerous conditions. ah, not environmentally friendly. and then i see an animation like that with a really chip or music. and i'm trying to figure i it, is this theoretical or is it actually going to be better this time? yes, so there's a really good question. so taking taking that the 2 questions on,

on the oil, the viewer is exactly right. if you look at the lithium ion battery, most t v, especially in china, the, they can contain a material co graphite, and some graphite synthetic graphite is made using feedstock from the oil industry . so fossil fuels is going directly into a lot of lithium on batteries. and also we need these on a fossil fuels, not the most mining. right. so most mines use diesel trucks. they use fossil fuels, the process, lithium, many people don't realize, natural gas is part of the process. so it's very hard to get rid of natural gas in the process of processing lithium, send us the fossil fuel angle. the colo tangle is really troubling. and i'm actually reading the book of that person who submitted that video clip. and i'd be into d. c. myself and it is incredibly problematic, but, but what's happening and why i write my book is to open our eyes to the supply

chain in the hope that we can improve it. and we're seeing assets by the d. c. government, by other groups to try and improve the situation to try and make sure these people get got a fair price, get safety equipment, etc. of course it is a huge challenge and no one's saying that it's going to be perfect tomorrow, but we shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of this energy transition. we have to move towards the bees and we can improve our supply chain right as well. if we are aware of the problems, we can apply our innovation and our skills to improve it and fossil fuels. we can to colonize the mining industry. we can do colonize the way these materials are processed and for cobo, what we need to see is, yeah, some, some, we need to step in and engage with the d r c and acknowledge our responsibility. but this cobo is coming out of the country. we need automated companies to, to properly engage on to go to the country to visit was for too long,

especially for consumer electronics. we've just turned a blind eye to, to the cohorts of going into what our device is, all small things so that you don't lose green. good is an advantage because people care about housemaid. christina, like you know, to jump in there. yeah, i could add to add to that because i, i had an organization in norway who read that represents more than the 120000 e b drivers. and we've asked them and almost 90 percent to confirm that they are very eager to know. and how sustainable a battery is and how, you know, workers' rights are, you know, looked after and, and so on. so, and, but i think also we have to look at a broader picture here and with congo. and especially it's been a lot of talk about congo, but we also have cobalt, other places in finland, for example. and another thing is that an amnesty international which has focused

a lot on congo and childs child labor and so on. they are not, they are not saying that we should stop to import, stop importing, cobble from congo. and what we have to do is to make sure that just the whole value chain of battery is a says sustainable, and that we know exactly what's going on. because there are also mines in cobbled that are as well and well regulated and, and, and good minds. but there are also a lot of irregular minds as well. so we have to make sure that i mean, isn't good for the people who, congo that if nobody wants to trade with them either. so we have to sort of think about the whole valley chain and i, and s, and we were talking about earlier. europe is really up for frontier with that the new battery regulation and demanding and demanding base and a university that sense you could also say that with ease is actually more focused on lay speakers. cobalt has been used air with the fossil fuel cars for

a long time as well. it's also used to fossil fuel cars is only when we get more environmental li, friendly chorus that we're focusing on it. so in that sense you could say that and the fact that we are getting evie on the road is also helping helping a whole production. i also did you want to jump in there? yes cohort. i also wanted to add a, i think i'm just as christine said, it's wonderful that we have much more focus on the environmental, you know, sort of the environmental impacts and environmental justice concerns with the electric vehicle and battery value chain in particular. and i want to highlight that, you know, it's easy to start demonizing this one part of the vehicle this, these challenges of these new supply chains that are forming. but actually this is a great advantage because we are not going to change the fossil fuels value chain just by continuing to drive gasoline vehicles, though we can do better. but we shouldn't allow the challenges of the evie value chain to prevent us from electrified. the other civic appoint alyssa,

but i think we won't do better unless we actually see where those challenges are. and christina, you mentioned cobalt comes from other places. i'd like to bring them one of those other places. this is a, another voice from someone in our community name stephanie ting, kill her son. and she is a documentary filmmaker listen to the so when people buy the chinese new tests, i don't think about the cost that is being paid to create that vehicle. that is being paid for elsewhere and other parcel world that is not in the western market in the western, and closely followed by western media. and so when we want to think about intern mikalyn, how can we have that in a way that has governmental oversight, corporate responsibility. and that is, well wash and well maintained when, although it's being built that you know, in this car is going to save the world. and that simply isn't too. and there's so much it in cost that it's being paid for by other people in my life. and parts of the world like my what's what stephanie says, parts of the world like mine,

she's actually talking about indonesia and that's where a lot of nickel, nickel comes from. so here, check this up. yep, i told them up they their minds down here, the mud is all over the sea. now, where can we go? how can we survive for the economy for education, the parents to day already struggling? so what can we expect for the next generation given the current condition of the surrounding environment? lucy alamo. what if i need on? thank you said i couldn't believe all the clove. trees had been cleared. i was shaking. it was our source of income. we were dreaming. about sending my child to college. when we went up to find the trees were all gone. i was devastated me. so alyssa seems like there's like an imbalance in the relationship with wealthy countries like the u. s. in norway. great, great examples that need the stuff, but they're getting it from countries as we mentioned, congo and indonesia. ah. how do you correct that and make sure that

they're doing it in an appropriate way? yeah, that's it. that's a great question. there are so many burdens faced by lower and middle income countries in particular that are providing materials for electric vehicles and potentially and taking used vehicles at end of life as well. and so they, they are likely to, to have a disproportionate burden associated with these vehicles and not have the climate in air quality benefits that richer nations are, are benefiting from. i do think there are, there are huge challenges to this, but i'm the work to put together. for example, the battery passports are there can be accountability in the value chain is extremely important. and again, europe is leading the way on that. i also think the consumer demand for o, for materials and for manufacturing and practices that are, that are more just is also really important as a driver for the industry to do better. and then also to have really, you know,

explicit, convers night conversations, the policies in place to make sure that we don't have sort of a race to the bottom when it comes to sourcing of materials. but also disposal of batteries. um and, and again, you know, having a holistic approach to policy the way that europe is trying to do with its battery regulation, i think is a really good model and a good start and places like the u. s. for example, nita nita started thinking about that since we, we haven't really pursued a holistic policy for henry, not just the production of it, but i want to bring in a voice or from the youtube audience. who's watching right now, ma'am? ma'am, ma'am? mickey says wire electric vehicle so expensive, and when will they fixed the planet? and part of that, what i'm wondering is, is when will we see these kind of vehicles be affordable enough that the global self will start to buy them? when will you see them driving all over africa? latin america and, and how important is that? yes. sorry sir. is our question for me and then what we need. yeah. so what we need to do exactly right is make electric vehicles um,

super cheap. so the markets like india, se, asia, we mentioned indonesia can kind of for them. and also, um, let's be honest, our western markets as well. and the way to do that is there's another battery technology called lithium on phosphate mosque is very big on which has no nickel and no coldwell on it on it's cheaper um it has lithium, but the fact is you don't get as much range as batteries with nickel and cobalt. so the question is you know, can consumers except a lower range vehicle and governments need to invest in charging infrastructure. so these cheaper vehicles can be charged easily. but this is definitely the route to, to penetrate, you know, market the need cheaper electric vehicles. and also there's just another technology coming out called sodium. i was just uses sodium i, which is basically table salt. so that's another way to get cheaper electric vehicles. so i know innovation is outside of thing and if

okay, alyssa, go for i'm so sorry. and so i just 2 things. one, i actually think of that we need to step back from assuming that the world, including wealthy nations, should be electrifying every vehicle on the road in some way that we did. we found that we could reduce material demand by more than 90 percent. if we pursued transit active mode alternatives to a personal vehicle dependency, and i think that car dependent places wealthy nations like the u. s. should pursue multi pronged approaches and not electrify everything. i'd also like to add that in globally electrified $2.00 and $3.00 wheelers have displaced more oil than all of the electric vehicles that have been sold all the passenger vehicles. and i say this because electrification is going to look different around the world. and we should, he looking to electrify 2 and 3 wheelers which can deliver great air quality benefits for urban areas as well as electrified buses, which will probably play

a really important role. for example, in electrifying latin america and africa. that's interesting. so this isn't just a one for one replacement from fossil fuel to electric vehicle. you're saying we really need to rethink the entire transportation model. yeah, absolutely. okay, for santa kit, i just i, i'm not sure if i'm disagreeing on just one or what and of course, what we can agree on, i think, is that all new vehicles that enter a roads should be 0 mission at that's i mean, or else was to keep, you know, pouring new cars or a new vehicles on the road that will be there for many years and pollute. so what we can agree on if we are to sell vehicles, if we are to sell cars, those cars should be able to run on renewable fuels. and that is electric cars. but it, oh, that's gonna be true christina. those cars need to be more affordable for everyone in the form in america. they're still kind of a luxury. no,

i think this is also common misconception. who buys new cars? who buys new cars in norway? 8 out of 10 who buy a new car, norway, a buy a car in norway by a 2nd hand car. most people don't buy a new car. those to buy a new car in any country, whether it's indonesia or if it's norway or in the u. s. at least in norway, half of them are, are companies, the other half is people with a certain incom. absolutely. and it's the same in poor countries as well. but these people, if they can afford an ice car, you need to make sure they also can afford an e v instead. and that's where green text is coming. you could hire texas on ice course and you allow e v to compete. so that people that actually afford new cars can afford and evie, their people, the way to less money in country will have to wait a few years until these ease are available in the secondhand market. right now. that is starting to happening, norway, we have

a growing 2nd hand market for evie because we've been selling these cars force for us some time. but we can't, we, i don't think that the solution is to make cars to cheap because that doesn't, that's not going to help us. is it? if they, if they're too cheap, every one will buy it, buy a car. and as a lisa says, we need to to make sure people are also using public transport, walking, cycling, and, and so on. a car shouldn't be too cheap, but even should to compete with ice cars. i think ethical, your spot on christina. but in the you, us, alyssa, do a new tax is higher taxes don't often go over though it didn't with that system work. and in the u. s. you think that could even get that through? no, there is no way that additional taxes on gasoline and diesel vehicles will, will happen in the u. s. i think it will have to be reflective of genuine cost reductions in electric vehicles. i think henry pointed out that and things like lithium iron phosphate batteries that are coming online. and not only do they have the benefit of of not including nickel and

a cobalt which are not only expensive materials but also materials with human rates and environmental issues. and we'll probably reduce the cost of, of electric vehicles and make them cost competitive with gasoline and diesel vehicles, especially from a total cost of ownership perspective. i think other countries in the world can implement these taxes. in fact, when we have a few examples of lower income countries around the world or middle income countries that rely on 2nd in vehicle flows, especially from a europe to pen in the u. s. and some of those countries have implemented exactly the tax regime on imports that christina's highlighted, and they had math of adoption. i read recently that mongolia, for example, which favored hybrid electric vehicles and had a fleet of 30 percent hybrid vehicles on the road, much better than what the u. s. has achieved with a tax regime. so i do think christina solution while it's not going to happen in the u. s. is really an excellent solution and many other parts of the world. i miss eleger this re multiple solutions,

different solutions for different parts of the world. world work, but i think everyone's in agreement that it needs to happen. right. definitely. luckily it's true. ellis, acellus assassin, henry says evey's will become cheaper. her go into my got her mom, my therapist, we're out of time. i want to thank all 3 of you, alyssa, christina and henry for joining us today. and for you, if you're watching on you tube or on out 0 english for joining us. and until next time or so you then ah ah long with

inspiring stories from around the world. ah. ready human life capture in its fast one. ah groundbreaking films from award with what is going on in new york city? on a just it's a $1000000000.00 money. no drink operation for coal mafia is bigger than the company. with financial institutions, regulators and governments complicit. i'm always open with it right, right. in a full pot series, i'll just here is investigative unit, because i'm the copper in southern africa, pittsburgh. we can fill 90 percent of the government once it's the following. it's practically brand new boom. part one on al jazeera, smiling through the coast,

tamara and her colleagues at the school for pupils with special needs, wants to pay royce that meets the rising cost of living and keeps people in the profession. these teachers are making sure bad jamal, and so i don't what is clearly a sizable demonstration of industrial action taking in various parts of the economy. calling on the government, prepay arises and needs inflation. if there's no movement on pay, we likely to be seeing more protests look just from people like tomorrow, but work as in other key professions who enjoyed growth support from the public. ah tough questions for tickets on the ceo, the chinese social media, john gets grilled before the u. s. congress of a day to privacy.