DeepGreen CEO Gerard Barron speaks to Nauru President Baron Waqa and Hon Milton Dube, about DeepGreen's plans to collect future metals from polymetallic nodules on the deep-ocean floor, while on board the Maersk Launcher on April 11, 2018, in San Diego.Sandy Huffaker/The Associated Press
As an international body meets Monday to discuss deep-sea mining, the debate around the practice is growing louder, with conservation groups calling for a moratorium and a Vancouver-based proponent saying it hopes to be mining in 2024.
Those competing visions will be front and centre in Kingston, Jamaica, where the International Seabed Authority is scheduled to hold meetings that will largely focus on this issue until July 28.
Established under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and a follow-up implementation agreement in 1994, the ISA has a mandate to regulate international waters – and the minerals those waters contain – for the benefit of humankind. Individual countries may authorize deep-sea mining in their own jurisdictions.
The ISA has developed regulations for mineral exploration in international waters, and over the past two decades, has been working on a mining code that would regulate mineral extraction. Those efforts had been moving slowly, reflecting the complexity of international marine law. And even as interest grew in extracting minerals, so did concern about how deep-sea mining could affect marine life and ocean health.
Then, in 2021, the tiny Pacific country of Nauru, triggered what’s known as the “two-year rule”: a treaty provision that essentially requires the ISA to complete mining regulations within two years of that provision being put into motion, or accept mining applications under whatever regulations already exist.
Under the UNCLOS treaty, companies must be sponsored by a member country to engage in mining. Nauru is working with TMC The Metals Company Inc., a Vancouver company that is leading the charge to mine the deep-sea floor. A TMC subsidiary, Nauru Ocean Resources, Inc., has an ISA-granted exploration contract in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, a stretch of the Pacific Ocean between Mexico and Hawaii.
The two-year period triggered by Nauru’s request expired on July 9 without the ISA having finalized a deep-sea mining code, raising the question of whether TMC would file a mining application as early as Monday.
But in an interview Friday, TMC chief executive officer Gerard Barron said the company did not intend to file an application this week, saying that both the Republic of Nauru and TMC have publicly stated they would prefer to file a mining application after the ISA has completed mining regulations.
“What we want to see is continued progress – and from everything we see around us, we’re confident that’s what we will see,” Mr. Barron said.
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For decades, mining interests have eyed the ocean depths as a potential treasure chest of minerals including copper, nickel and cobalt, a prospect that has become even more tantalizing amid what is expected to be increasing demand.
A 2021 report by the International Energy Association, for example, said the shift to clean energy is set to drive a “huge increase” in metal requirements, with the world on track for a doubling of overall mineral requirements by 2040.
Companies like TMC want to haul up metal-containing nodules, saying that deep-sea mining would be quicker and have less environmental impact than building new land-based mines.
“We believe we can massively compress the whole range of environmental and human costs when we collect these rocks off the sea floor and turn them into battery metals compared to the land-based alternative,” Mr. Barron said.
But a broad range of interests, including marine researchers, some national governments and a host of conservation groups, are fiercely opposed to that prospect, saying deep-sea mining would destroy marine habitat, create noise pollution and send plumes of potentially polluted sediment drifting through the ocean.
According to a petition posted by the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, sixteen countries, including Switzerland, Ireland and France, have now taken positions against deep-sea mining in international waters.
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In February, 2023, Canada announced a ban on deep-sea mining in domestic waters and said the practice in international waters should go ahead only under rigorous regulations that protect the marine environment.
Some conservation groups would like to see Canada join countries that have called for a pause.
“Opposition to deep-sea mining is growing as more governments listen to the science and the public, and choose to pump the brakes on putting another ocean ecosystem at risk of devastation,” Sarah King, head of Greenpeace Canada’s Oceans and Plastics campaign, said in a Friday statement.
“It’s critically important that Canada join the chorus and support a moratorium on deep sea mining in international waters in order to make good on its commitments to protect marine biodiversity,” she added.
TMC is not worried by talk of a potential moratorium, Mr. Barron said.
“There is no legal premise in the convention, which all the member countries have signed on to, that has any provision for a moratorium,” Mr. Barron said, referring to UNCLOS.
TMC hopes to be ready for production by late next year and expects the ISA will be equipped to regulate operations by that time, he added.
As the ISA considers deep-sea mining in international waters, countries still have the right to allow it in their own ocean boundaries.
In June, Norway said it wants to open some of its waters for deep-sea mining, citing the need for minerals to shift to a greener economy. Environmental groups condemned the proposal.