Mining of manganese nodules: no solution in deep-sea mining talks

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At the end of the council meeting at ISA’s headquarters in the Jamaican capital Kingston, the 36 member states only agreed Friday evening (local time) on the goal of adopting a set of rules by 2025.

That should have happened already: a day before the start of the meeting, on July 9, a deadline had passed to regulate the commercial extraction of raw materials at the bottom of international waters.

Sponsoring a subsidiary of the Canadian group The Metals Company, the Pacific state of Nauru had announced two years earlier that it would apply for deep-sea mining, triggering the deadline set by a clause in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). After that time period, takedown requests must be processed by the ISA, even if there are no rules.

Potential damage to the deep-sea ecosystem from mining

The delegations in Kingston also could not agree on how to deal with the applications that are now possible. In a second agreement on Friday evening, it was agreed that if a decommissioning request is received before a regulation has been adopted, priority will be given to handling it in accordance with the paragraphs of the Unclos. According to observers who attended the meeting, many member states said they would not approve mining projects until a regulatory framework was in place.

Specifically, it concerns the mining of manganese nodules on the seabed in the Pacific Ocean between Mexico and Hawaii, in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. This contains raw materials that can be used in the manufacture of batteries for electric cars, for example. However, studies question the need for the energy transition.

Researchers have identified potential serious damage to the largely unexplored deep-sea ecosystem from mining. More than a dozen countries, including Switzerland, are in favor of not allowing deep-sea mining until the environmental impact is better studied. (SDA)

Source:Blick