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Governments Turn Against Deep-Sea Mining as EV Boom Drives Demand for Metals

A UN-affiliated organization meets this week to negotiate regulations that could allow seabed mining to begin as soon as 2024, despite warnings from scientists about a potential environmental catastrophe. 

A new species from a new order of Cnidaria lives on sponge stalks attached to nodules in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone of the Pacific Ocean.

A new species from a new order of Cnidaria lives on sponge stalks attached to nodules in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone of the Pacific Ocean.

Photographer: Craig Smith and Diva Amon, ABYSSLINE Project via NOAA

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As battery makers scramble to procure cobalt, nickel and other metals to meet rising consumer demand for electric cars, governmental opposition to strip-mining the seabed for minerals is mounting.

The deep ocean contains the largest estimated deposits of minerals on the planet, potentially worth trillions of dollars. But in recent weeks, Chile, Fiji, Palau and other nations have called for a moratorium on ocean mining until there is a better understanding of the environmental consequences of destroying little-explored and unique deep-sea ecosystems that play an undetermined role in the global climate. French President Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, expressed his opposition to seabed mining in June at the United Nations Ocean Conference in Lisbon, Portugal.