Surangel S. Whipps Jr., president of the tiny Pacific island nation of Palau, wants more countries to join him in calling for a moratorium on deep-sea mining.
This prospective industry, also called seabed mining, aims to extract sought-after minerals like copper, cobalt and rare earth metals from the deep seabed. As global interest in deep-sea mining grows, nations have been divided on whether to allow the industry to proceed. Advocates say the industry could procure critical minerals for “green” technologies like electric batteries and provide economic benefits for Pacific nations dealing with sea level rise and other impacts of climate change. Critics say it would cause large-scale and irreparable destruction of the seabed and surrounding marine environment, and that seafloor minerals aren’t necessary for renewable energy technologies and other commodities.
At the U.N. Ocean Conference in Lisbon in 2022, Whipps, who had taken office a year earlier, became one of the first world leaders to officially call for a moratorium on deep-sea mining, along with leaders from Fiji, Samoa, Tuvalu, and Guam. Additionally, Palau and Fiji announced the formation of an alliance of nations calling for similar measures. Since then, a total of 32 nations have called for a moratorium or precautionary pause on deep-sea mining — both positions stipulating an official pause, albeit with different terminology. At one point, France even called for an outright ban.
However, these calls have not been enough to stop the industry from moving forward. While commercial-scale exploitation of the seabed has not yet started anywhere in the world, several nations, including the Cook Islands, Japan, Norway and Papua New Guinea, are making plans to mine the seabed in their territorial waters and along their extended continental shelves. For instance, Japan has said it’s preparing to mine by the late 2020s.