Editorial | Widen seabed mining discussion

As a pioneer and invested party in the global discussions on mining the deep seabed for minerals, Jamaica should clarify its stance on suggestions in some quarters that it might be too dangerous for the world to follow through on that plan.

Too little is known about the depths of the world’s oceans, the emerging arguments goes, to risk its further disturbance, with potential consequences similar to those humans have wrought by their activities on land, including the extinction of species and global warming.

It has been known for decades that parts of the world’s oceans contain nodules filled with metals and minerals that are considered crucial, including for use, ironically, in climate-mitigation technologies, such as photovoltaic systems. Many of these minerals are either naturally scarce or depleted on land.

Mining the polymetallic nodules from the ocean depths, however, was constrained by technology and the absence of a global regime for the orderly allocation of resources.

Those problems have been, or are on their way to being solved. Technologies have emerged, and are advancing rapidly, that increasingly make it feasible to mine the deep seabed.

At the same time, the International Seabed Authority (ISA), an outcome of the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), has, for two and half decades, been drafting the rules and regulations for the exploration and mining of the deep seabed.

Indeed, since the start of the 2000s, the ISA, which is headquartered in Kingston, has issued more than two dozen licences to companies and countries to explore (not mine) in a vast 1.7 million square-mile area of the Pacific.

LESS GREENHOUSE GASES

One of those companies, Blue Minerals Jamaica Ltd, was sponsored by Jamaica, allowing it to explore in an area reserved for developing countries. The exploration agreement Blue Minerals signed with the ISA two years ago was for 15 years.

Blue Minerals Jamaica, like most proponents of mining in the deep seabed, argues that it can be done sustainably and ultimately contribute to spewing less greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

“Blue Minerals Jamaica is proud to be part of the effort to secure the supply of metals to the global electrification process in the decades ahead and thereby play our part in the global effort towards decarbonisation,” said the company’s director, Peter Jantzen, at the time of the announcement of the licensing agreement with the ISA.

However, a handful of countries, though far more than when this process began in the 1980s – or even a few years ago – have urged the ISA to proceed even more slowly in its rule-making, and, ultimately, the issuing of mining licences. Some have called for an abandonment of the very idea of deep seabed mining.

Part of their argument is that mining of these largely unexplored regions of the oceans could irreversibly damage fragile ecosystems, as well as release carbons trapped below the ocean floors. That, ironically, would contribute to global warming and climate change.

While there is a broad understanding of the risks of mining the deep seabed, the extent of the danger claimed by critics is not settled science. It warrants full, unemotive discussion and debate – and not just among diplomats poring over the arcane texts of international agreements.

Jamaicans must be fully engaged in these discussions. All stakeholders should be transparently involved.

A MAJOR STAKE

Jamaica has a major stake in the issue. Several Jamaicans played key roles in the creation of the ISA and fought hard for the authority to be headquartered in Kingston. The island is the sponsor of a potential miner of the deep seabed. And very critically, as a small island state, Jamaica is vulnerable to the effects of global warming – rising sea levels, droughts, and more – and more violent storms. Jamaica, in this regard, has to balance many interests.

At last week’s end of the first half of the 28th session of the ISA Council, Jamaica’s permanent representative to the authority, Allison Stone-Roofe, commended the effort towards crafting rules for the “sustainable use of the oceans”, and stressed that the aim was to “always balance the vows of all interested parties”.

That approach is, of course, important in all sustainable agreements. We, nonetheless, would like to hear other knowledgeable interests, including those in the island’s academies.