A gold rush to mine the ocean's depths, no matter the environmental devastation caused. That's how some groups are describing efforts to allow large-scale commercial mining of the deep seas in a bid to collect metals needed to help accelerate the world's green revolution.

"The deep-sea environment is particularly vulnerable and fragile; it's a slow-moving environment, things take a long time to grow, to reproduce," Emma Wilson of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition told CGTN Europe. "There’s no going back from any of the impacts of deep-sea mining, the impacts would be irreversible."

The issue is pitting countries against each other, as a little-known UN body called the International Seabed Authority (ISA) begins three weeks of talks in Kingston, Jamaica, on whether to issue guidelines for this type of mining.

In the 1980s the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea declared 54 percent of the world’s oceans as "Common Heritage of Mankind" – in other words, it belonged to everyone and mining in the area was to be banned until a mining code could be agreed. But despite the establishment of the ISA in 1994, no agreement has ever been reached.

In 2021 the Pacific Island Nation of Nauru, working with Canadian mining firm, The Metals Company, applied to start deep-sea mining in the common area – parts of the ocean not governed by a single nation. Under ISA rules, this triggered a two-year deadline for the body to come up with such a code, or allow mining to begin. The deadline passed in early July with no agreement.

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Now countries including France, Germany, Canada and Chile are calling for a pause on all deep sea mining operations in common areas, where mining exploration has already prompted protests. However, nations including Norway, China and South Korea favor pushing ahead.

There's a reason why. It's a potentially lucrative business. The seabed holds rich deposits of minerals and metals including cobalt, copper and nickel which are used in technologies such as wind turbines, solar panels and EV batteries.

Some scientists have voiced concern about the unknown consequences of underwater extraction.

"It is like going into a new frontier with a technology that's just now being developed," Lisa Levin, Professor of Biological Oceanography at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, part of the University of California, told CGTN Europe. 

"My feeling about it is that we should only be doing that if we know enough about the ecosystems, we know what lives there, what we stand to lose and how they're linked to the fisheries above the mining areas. We need to have a tremendous amount of knowledge before we can effectively regulate such a risky industry."

But The Metals Company says the biggest threat to the oceans is climate change and insists the top priority of the planet should be achieving net-zero emissions as fast as possible.  

The company did not respond to requests for comment but a statement on its website reads: "Staying dependent on fossil fuels will continue to contribute to a host of environmental and climate issues – ocean acidification, oil spills, toxic byproducts, and resource wars among them."

This environmental disagreement is being played out at the ISA talks in Jamaica, as countries wrestle with the dilemma of whether or not to collect precious minerals and metals from the seabed as the world shifts away from fossil fuels.

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