Two weeks ago in Kingston, Jamaica, delegates from 168 nations gathered behind closed doors to decide the fate of the deep ocean. The International Seabed Authority — a body most people have never heard of — was poised to greenlight the largest extractive operation in human history. Industrial-scale mining of polymetallic nodules would scrape the Pacific seabed bare.
A Race to the Bottom
The push is driven by demand for cobalt, nickel, and manganese — metals used in electric vehicle batteries. Proponents frame deep-sea mining as a green necessity, but thirty-seven marine scientists published a joint statement in a marine journal last November calling this a false equivalence. The deep sea is the planet’s largest carbon sink, and disturbing it could release sequestered carbon at a scale that undermines the very climate goals these metals serve.
“We are being asked to destroy the last wilderness on Earth to solve a problem that better recycling can already address.”
— Dr. Kenji Watanabe, Deep Ocean Research Institute
Three commercial contractors have already spent over $200 million on exploratory operations and are lobbying aggressively for a regulatory framework that prioritizes speed over precaution. A growing coalition of Pacific Island nations — whose fisheries stand to bear the direct consequences — is calling for a full moratorium. The next session is scheduled for July.