Slavery Poisons Solar Industry’s Supply Chains.
Globally, even international organizations such as the United Nations and the European Union have begun to voice concerns about forced labour being used in China. The US Department of Labor has created a 116-page report on goods that have been tainted with forced labor, and the State Department has created reports specifically about the use of forced labour in renewable energy supply chains.
Our current path presents an ethical conflict, pitting the climate lobby’s objectives against our nation’s moral compass. CSIS, a nonpartisan think tank, estimates that more than 1 million minorities, chiefly the Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and Kirgizs, have been subjected to mass detention, pervasive surveillance and forced labor—a brutal reality that starkly contrasts with the shiny promise of clean energy.
In its bid to dominate solar panel production, China has forced these “surplus workers” to toil in state-subsidized, coal-fired power plants and four of the five largest polysilicon factories. Using this exploitative labour system and utilizing coal power plants, its share of global polysilicon production surged from 26% in 2010 to 82% in 2020, while America’s share declined from 35% to 5% over the same period.
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KEY TAKEAWAYS
Roughly 80% of solar components are manufactured in China using slave labour.
The onus lies with US companies to provide clear and convincing evidence that their imports from Xinjiang were not produced using forced labor.
There should be no opportunity for Chinese goods made with slave labor to enter American markets.