Miners plan to extract cobalt and other battery metals from the seabed. (Image courtesy of The Metals Co.)
As companies seek to extract critical minerals used in electric vehicle batteries and other green technologies from the deep sea, a showdown is underway over when and whether to allow mining of untouched, biodiverse ecosystems.
For more than a decade, delegates from the United Nations-affiliated International Seabed Authority (ISA) have been negotiating regulations to allow deep-sea mining as required by a 1982 UN treaty. Those deliberations are continuing this week during a meeting in Kingston, Jamaica, in advance of a July deadline to finish the job. With a breakthrough looking out of reach, miners could get an opening to force the organization to consider — and potentially approve — mining applications before environmental safeguards have been put in place.
One high-profile mining startup,…
