Environmental groups on Wednesday urged a moratorium on deep-sea mining ahead of an international meeting in Jamaica where an obscure UN body will debate the issue, amid fears it could soon authorise the world’s first licence to harvest minerals from the ocean floor.
More than 20 countries have called for a moratorium or a precautionary pause, with Monaco this month becoming the latest to oppose deep-sea mining ahead of the meeting Monday in Jamaica of the U.N. International Seabed Authority’s council that will last almost two weeks.
Companies including Samsung and BMW also have pledged to avoid using minerals mined from the deep sea.
“Sea mining is one of the key environmental issues of our time, and this is because the deep sea is among the last pristine areas of our planet,” said Sofia Tsenikli, from the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, a Netherlands-based alliance of environmental groups.
The development of clean energy technologies including electric vehicles, solar panels and wind turbines is driving up demand for metals such as copper, nickel and cobalt that mining companies say can be extracted from more than 600 feet below sea level.
Demand for lithium tripled from 2017 to 2022, while cobalt saw a 70% jump and nickel a 40% rise, according to a market review published in July by the International Energy Agency.
Mining companies say that harvesting minerals from the deep sea instead of land is cheaper and has less of an environmental impact.
But scientists and environmental groups argue that less than 1% of the world’s deep seas have been explored, and they warn that deep sea mining could unleash noise, light and suffocating dust storms.
“It has the potential to destroy Earth’s last wilderness and endanger our largest carbon sink while proving itself neither technical nor financially feasible,” said Bobbi-Jo Dobush from The Ocean Foundation, a US-based non-profit organisation.
The International Seabed Authority, which is tasked with regulating deep international waters, has issued more than 30 exploration licences. China holds five, the most of any country, with a total of 22 countries issued such licences, said Emma Wilson with the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition.
Much of the exploration is focused in an area known as the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone, which spans 1.7 million square miles between Hawaii and Mexico. Exploration is occurring at depths ranging from 13,000ft to 19,000ft.
No provisional mining licences have been issued, but scientists and environmental groups worry that a push by some members of the International Seabed Authority and its secretariat to adopt a mining code by 2025 could soon change that.
“The very existence of this institution relies on mining activities beginning,” Ms Wilson said, noting that the authority would be financed by royalties from mining contracts.
The authority said in a statement to the Associated Press that its mandate is to protect and regulate, and that the decisions taken reflect the will of member states.