PINA

Nauru is a small Pacific island 4,000km (2,485 miles) off the coast of Australia. It is so small, it has no capital city and just one road.

But its roughly 12,000 inhabitants are at the heart of a conflict over mining the world’s sea beds for precious minerals.

The clash pits differing views about how to tackle climate change. Nauru’s government sees rare earth metals as a key component in the green energy transition. However, conservationists argue that mining the ocean floor will threaten vital marine ecosystems.

Deep-sea mining involves hoovering poly-metallic nodules – resembling potato-sized nuggets – off the ocean floor and piping them up to vessels on the water’s surface. These nodules contain copper, lithium and other treasured elements.

Advocates for the controversial practice contend that terrestrial mining will soon fall short of the demand for rare earth metals, particularly cobalt and nickel, which are needed to power “green” storage batteries and ensure a shift away from fossil fuels.

According to the International Energy Agency, the surge of battery technology in electric cars, solar panels and wind turbines, resulting from a push to meet the Paris Climate Agreement, will see global mineral demand increase four-fold by 2040.

“The green energy transition will require an enormous amount of storage capacity,” said Jeroen Hagelstein of Allseas, a Swiss subsea contractor. “Metals on the seabed can help meet those needs.”

“Sea mining also leaves a smaller carbon footprint than on land, with fewer impacts on humans,” he said, adding that companies intend to maintain the highest environmental standards and operate within guidelines laid out by regulatory bodies

Environmentalists, however, warn that deep-sea mining poses an existential threat to fragile marine ecosystems. Ancient lifeforms like polychaete worms, dumbo octopuses and twilight zone corals are at risk from dredging.

Deep-water industrial noise would also distort communication between whales, prompting distress and interrupting feeding patterns. Elsewhere, plumes of sediment laced with toxic metals could spiral upwards from seafloor vehicles, contaminating marine food chains.

“Deep-sea habitats are largely unknown. We do know that they take millennia to evolve and can take seconds to destroy. Who knows how long it would take to reestablish dynamic ecosystems once the mining has finished?” asked Jessica Battle, a senior expert on global ocean policy at the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

Environmental groups are not alone in denouncing the practice. In March 2021, BMW, Volvo and Samsung, among others, joined the WWF in calling for a moratorium on deep-sea mining until the ecological risks are better understood.

Today, opponents are mobilising around the International Seabed Authority (ISA) – a United Nations-backed regulator established in 1994 to protect the seabed and regulate mining activities in areas beyond national jurisdictions or in international waters.

Since 2001, the ISA has approved 31 exploration licences. Mining permits, however, have not yet been authorised. That could change this month as Nauru triggered an obscure legal provision two years ago that may allow it to start mining soon.

Under that legal sub-clause in the UN’s Law of the Sea, if a country applies to start deep-sea mining, the ISA has two years to finalise a rulebook for commercial deep-sea mining activities.

If there is no rulebook, mining can start. The loophole expires on 09 July. In theory, mining applications can start after that.

Over the past 23 months, negotiations have failed to result in a mining code. The ISA may be forced to accept Nauru’s application to start activities this summer (via a subsidiary of The Metals Company, a Canadian firm) even in the absence of industry regulations.

“Nauru’s application could be provisionally approved,” said Costa Rica’s Permanent Representative to the ISA Gina Guillen Grillo. “Among other requirements, however, it would need to submit an environmental impact statement. Right now, we have no internal process to assess this first step.”

She added that “plenty of member states feel the ISA is under no obligation to approve mining applications until robust regulations with environmental safeguards are in place. And we’re still several years away from that.”

Under existing rules, a mining application must be approved by the ISA’s Legal and Technical Commission (LTC), which then issues recommendations to the body’s ruling council. For a licence to be granted, it would need the support of one-third of the council’s 36 members.

“The council could instruct the LTC not to issue any recommendations before a mining code is established, essentially stopping the process in its tracks bureaucratically,” Guillen Grillo added.

“For now, we continue to work under the principles of consensus and preserving the common heritage of mankind. Decisions about deep-sea mining cannot be rushed to meet some arbitrary deadline,” she said.

Internal disputes are a measure of the tensions hanging over the agency amid pressure from some members to slow down ocean mining, while others want it sped up.

Norway’s government is readying plans to license exploration applications. Chinese vessels, meanwhile, have been prospecting the ocean floor for decades. In contrast, Germany and Costa Rica have advocated for a temporary pause of the practice, citing a lack of scientific impact data.

Looking ahead, Nauru’s actions may prompt other countries to begin applying for licences in July. This has triggered consternation among environmentalists who fear the possibility of a commercial race to the bottom of the ocean.

“Nauru’s legal loophole is small, not big,” said the WWF’s Battle. “We’re hopeful that licences won’t be granted anytime soon and that a moratorium on deep-sea mining will be implemented to help safeguard the health of our seas, rather than use them as a source of short-term profit.

SOURCE: ALJAZEERA/PACNEWS

Nauru wants permission to mine the ocean floor for critical minerals used to make batteries for the global transition to net zero, saying it would give the tiny Pacific nation the chance of economic survival with the end of offshore processing.

Potato-sized nodules laden with some metals, including cobalt, manganese and nickel, required to make the batteries needed for electric vehicles and green energy systems lay on the sea bed in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, an area spanning 4.5 million square kilometres between Hawaii and Mexico.

Around 30 countries, including Nauru, were granted exploration contracts by the UN agency that governs deep-sea mining, the International Seabed Authority (ISA), in 2011. But since then, there has been no progress on authorising the exploitation of the minerals with the international community divided over the idea.

The Authority is due to meet this week in Jamaica with speculation a decision on granting permission will be delayed again.

Nauru’s Ambassador to the International Permanent Sea Bed Authority Margo Deiye said Nauru’s economic prospects were dwindling with the phasing down of its phosphate mining and offshore processing of Australia’s unwanted asylum seekers.

“We need to diversify, we have more ocean than land,” she said in an interview over Zoom from New York where she is Ambassador to the UN.

Nauru Ocean Resources Inc (NORI), a subsidiary of Canadian mining company The Metals Company, has led efforts to exploit seabed minerals in the Pacific.

Nauru is urging the international community to stop stalling on a decision and allow it to collect the nuggets using robots ahead of the crunch meeting on the issue next on 09 July.

At the heart of the discussions is a loophole known as the “two-year rule”, which says the ISA council must “consider and provisionally approve” applications two years after they are submitted, even though it has yet to finalise related regulations. Nauru, TMC’s sponsoring state, triggered the loophole in July 2021.

Nauru has indicated it would submit a “plan of work” to the ISA’s technical committee this year, but the committee is not expected to formally recommend approval.

Western countries have expressed alarm at the risks posed by China dominating the supply of critical minerals. But many countries are also deeply opposed to deep-sea mining including Germany, France, Spain, Chile and New Zealand, arguing that it would destroy the underwater ecosystem. They want a moratorium on all in line with Greenpeace, which says the industry should be banned before it begins.

Environmental groups warn that the use of heavy machinery to extract polymetallic nodules from ocean floors could cause irreparable damage to marine ecosystems, destroying habitats, churning up sediment and disrupting migratory routes.

TMC says that while deep-sea mining will have some ecological impact, it would be less damaging than land-based extraction.

Sian Owen, director of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition said new technology and recycling could reduce demand for critical minerals by as much as 58 per cent by the middle of the century.

“We are facing a dual crisis of biodiversity loss and climate change,” Owen said.

“One should not be sacrificed to address the other. Deep-sea mining would see industrial extraction on a far greater scale than anything on land.”

Nauru is slowly sinking into the Pacific because of climate change. Deiye said allowing mining for the metals to produce the batteries required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions was a balanced trade-off.

“We need to take our own development into consideration while everyone else emits their greenhouse gases,” she said.

She said the country had a shot of forging its own economic future having suffered the consequences of phosphate mining when colonised. Nauru gained control of its phosphate industry in the 1970s and for a time became one of the wealthiest countries on a per capita basis before verging on bankruptcy when the deposits ran dry.

“We don’t go with this without eyes closed but with our eyes open because we’ve had that experience,” she said. “The misunderstanding is that any human activity does not have risks – every activity has risks. “But the risk of not doing anything with this current climate crisis, is much bigger for us and it’s an existential threat for the Pacific. “

She said allowing Nauru to mine was a better solution for the nation than having to beg from richer countries for income.

Nauru earned hundreds of millions of dollars by agreeing to house Australia’s unwanted asylum seekers. Although all asylum seekers have now been removed from the island, Australia will provide $350 million (US$234 million) a year to the tiny island.

SOURCE: SMH/PACNEWS

Governments will soon likely be able to apply for deep sea mining contracts in international waters, a plunge into the unknown that is worrying conservationists as calls for a moratorium on such digging grow.

States have for ten years been negotiating a mining code to set rules for the possible exploitation of nickel, cobalt and copper in deep seabed areas that fall outside of national jurisdictions.

But agreement has so far been elusive, and on Sunday (09 July) a clause is set to expire that allows governments to apply for contracts while negotiations continue.

“I think it’s a very real possibility that we see an application submitted this year,” Emma Wilson of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition told AFP.

“So it’s crucial for states to be bold and implement the necessary measures to protect our ocean,” she said, adding that the International Seabed Authority (ISA) is entering “the most critical decision-making period in the history of its existence.”

The ISA was established under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. It is responsible for protecting the seabed in the high seas as well as regulating activities related to coveted minerals.

Presently, the Jamaica-based body only grants exploration permits for these areas, which the UN convention classifies as “the common heritage of mankind.”

In the summer of 2021, the small Pacific island state of Nauru threw a spanner into the works of the decade-long negotiations for the mining code by triggering a clause demanding that agreement be reached within two years.

With that timeframe now up, if Nauru were to apply for a contract for Nauru Ocean Resources (Nori), a subsidiary of Canadian firm The Metals Company, then ISA would have to consider the request — but may not necessarily give the green light.

The Nauru authorities have given assurances that they will not act immediately, but other companies sponsoring states’ underwater mining ventures could take advantage of the opportunity, experts say.

“I’m not too concerned,” Pradeep Singh, a laws of the sea expert at the Research Institute for Sustainability in Potsdam, Germany, told AFP.

“I think it would be a mistake to submit an application anytime soon, seeing that states are still negotiating and working towards completing the regulation.

“The indication is quite clear that states are very reluctant and hesitant to allow mining to commence without regulations,” he added.

In March, the 36 member states of the ISA Council, the decision-making body on contracts, noted that commercial exploitation “should not be carried out” until the mining code was in place.

But they were unable to agree on the process for examining a possible application, or on the precise interpretation of the clause triggered by Nauru.

NGOs fearing that companies may exploit the legal vacuum hope that the Council will make a much clearer decision when it meets in Kingston from 10 to 21 July.

Meanwhile, Chile, France, Palau and Vanuatu have chosen to take the debate to the political level.

At their request, and for the first time, the assembly of ISA’s 167 member states will discuss a “precautionary pause” in mining when it meets between 24 and 28 July.

“The aim is to put the issue on the table, to have a debate that has never taken place before”, French Secretary of State for the Sea Herve Berville told AFP, hoping that this will “encourage other countries to follow suit.”

The coalition supporting the moratorium, although gaining ground, currently comprises just under 20 countries.

“The aim is that by 2024, it will be clear to a majority of countries that a precautionary pause in the exploitation of the seabed is the right thing to do if we are to meet the challenges of climate change and biodiversity,” Berville added.

He insists it’s a “question of credibility” at a time when the world has just adopted the first treaty to protect the high seas and has set itself the target of preserving 30 percent of land and oceans by 2030.

NGOs and scientists say that deep sea mining could destroy habitats and species that may still be unknown but are potentially vital to ecosystems.

They also say it risks disrupting the ocean’s capacity to absorb carbon dioxide emitted by human activities, and that its noise interferes with the communication of species such as whales.

“We have the opportunity to anticipate this new extractive industry and stop it before it can do any damage to our planet,” said Louisa Casson of Greenpeace.

SOURCE: AFP/PACNEWS