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Rotterdam, Netherlands: A deep sea miner ship docked.Charles M. Vella/SOPA Images via ZUMA Press
This story was originally published in The Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
The UN-affiliatedAfter an independent body was removed from the reporting of negotiations, an organization that oversees deep sea mining, a controversial new sector, was accused of failing to be transparent.
The International Seabed Authority meets this week at the headquarters of its council in Kingston, Jamaica, to create regulations for the emerging industry. However, it was revealed this week Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB), a division of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), which has covered previous ISA negotiations, had not had its contract renewed.
While the ISA negotiations are filmed live via webcam, the absence of ENB—which would have created a permanent independent record of proceedings—was described as a “huge loss” for stakeholders.
Germany and other states are also concerned about the ISA’s secretive development of its mining standards and guidelines. The ISA has insufficient knowledge of deep-sea ecosystems, as well as the potential impacts of mining on the marine environment, to allow them to proceed.
Scientists warn that mining nickel, cobalt, and other metals on deep-seabeds could cause ecosystem damage. “dangerous,” “reckless,” and “irreversible.” One estimate suggests that 90 percent of the deep-sea species that researchers encounter are new to science.
The ISA is being criticized for its rush to create a roadmap that can be adopted before July 9, 2023, as opposition grows to deep-sea mines. The plan was prompted in June last year, when the island of Nauru informed the ISA of its intention to start mining the seabed in two years’ time, via a subsidiary of a Canadian firm, The Metals Company (TMC, until recently known as DeepGreen Metals). This invoked an obscure clause from the United Nations Convention on the Law of the SeaAccording to, the ISA must approve regulations within two years of making such an announcement.
Google, BMW and Volvo joined a World of Ideas. Wildlife Fund call for a moratorium on mining the deep sea, which will affect the potential market for deep-sea minerals used for car and smartphone batteries.
The ISA said ENB’s contract was not renewed due to budget cuts. The IISD said that it is now raising funds to cover the July round of negotiations. “Transparency of the talks are important, especially for small islands and developing countries who can’t always attend,” said the IISD’s Matthew TenBruggencate.
Germany and environmentalists also expressed concern over a lack of transparency by the ISA’s legal and technical commission (LTC), a body charged with developing standards and guidelines for the mining code, which meets behind closed doors.
The LTC has 30 members. A fifth of them work for contractors in deep-sea mining firms.
In its opening remarks on the ISA’s website, Germany highlighted the absence of stakeholders’ comments, or marked-up changes in the LTC’s draft standards and guidelines document. “In order to be transparent and allow for a proper debate, a mark-up document as provided by the facilitator regarding the draft regulation would be very helpful for our negotiations,” it said. “Therefore, we suggest that the council request such a document.”
Germany also said the mining code “still lacked binding and measurable normative requirements” for marine protection. It argued that, because the current standards, guidelines and regulations do not yet contain “specific environmental minimal requirements” for measurable pollution, sediment plumes, biodiversity, and noise and light impacts, the code as it stands would not regulate future mining effectively.
“The current state of knowledge is, in our view, insufficient to proceed to exploiting mineral resources,” it said.
It supported the EU’s formal position that marine minerals “cannot be exploited before the effects of deep-sea mining on the marine environment, biodiversity and human activities have been sufficiently researched, the risks are understood and technologies and operational practices are able to demonstrate that the environment is not seriously harmed, in line with the precautionary principle.”
Other countries, such as Chile, Costa Rica, the Netherlands, Costa Rica, and Belgium, took similar precautionary measures, highlighting the gap in scientific knowledge about the deep sea. According to observers, the UK has been pushing forward for rapid development and regulation, even though it is no longer a member of the EU.
According to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the UK government is participating in ISA negotiations in order to ensure that high environmental standards are adopted in deep-sea mine regulations. “Any ongoing conversations in support of this should not be interpreted as support for deep-sea mining,” a spokesperson said.
Duncan Currie is an international lawyer for the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, which is tracking the negotiations, said he was “very concerned” by the various failures of transparency. “There is no transparency of the LTC, who meet behind closed doors. It sounds like an innocuous body, but it is in essence the decision-making body within the ISA.”
Currie would like to see a moratorium in deep-sea mines, similar to the Antarctic protocol. “The whole area of deep-sea mining is a scientific and political minefield. There should be a moratorium put in place.”
The proposal guidelines and standards also did not include the possibility of stopping mining.
Greenpeace, an observer at the talks, called for reform of the ISA’s secretariat, which it accused of bias towards allowing mining to take place, to the detriment of the environment.
“There are a herd of elephants in the room,” said Arlo Hemphill, an oceans campaigner for Greenpeace USA. “There’s not enough time to get it right, and there is not the science to get it right.”
The ISA secretariat was contacted for comment, but did not respond.
