"Metals bosses enjoy front row seat at UN deep-sea mining negotiations", 08 August 2023

" Climate Home News identified at least 33 executives and employees of companies directly involved in the nascent deep-sea mining industry on the list of state delegations at the International Seabed Authority (ISA) annual meeting....

this year’s summit came at a pivotal moment, as any member state could now theoretically apply for a mining contract on behalf of a company. That is after a deadline to establish mining rules triggered by the island-nation of Nauru lapsed earlier in July.

The meeting pitted a handful of countries pushing for the ISA to introduce regulations and issue permits against a growing coalition calling for a halt to operations until the full environmental impacts are known...

Mining companies claim that minerals like nickel and cobalt extracted from polymetallic nodules lying on the seabed are needed in batteries and will help speed up the energy transition...

A lead negotiator told Climate Home News that the number of industry representatives at the talks last July was similar to that seen in previous years but, for the first time, they took part in the small-room negotiations.

“Each country has the right to include in its delegation whoever it chooses,” they added. “But it is very telling when a delegation brings a contractor into the close negotiations limited to member states. It shows who is influencing its decisions."...

Nauru, China, Japan, Jamaica, Belgium, the UK, Netherlands, the Cook Islands and Singapore all brought mining executives and consultants to the talks in Kingston, Jamaica, last month, according to an analysis by Climate Home News.

All these countries except the Netherlands directly sponsor companies that are looking into ways to collect precious metals from the ocean floor...

Among the most high-profile industry players in Kingston was Gerard Barron, the outspoken CEO of The Metals Company (TMC), a Canadian deep-sea mining startup that is at the forefront of efforts to mine the ocean.

Barron joined the talks as a representative of Nauru, the Pacific island nation sponsoring one of his company’s licenses. Nauru heaped pressure on the ISA in 2021 when it triggered an obscure mechanism that gave the UN agency two years to write up regulations for mining...

Unlike most other countries, China did not spell out on the participants’ list the affiliation of its delegation members. But Climate Home News has identified at least two representatives of Chinese state-owned companies that are currently exploring the ocean seabed for metal extraction...

Japan arrived in Kingston with the largest group of industry advisers among its ranks. Seven representatives for each of the country’s two state-backed deep-sea mining players joined the delegation...

The host country for the talks, Jamaica, also included a number of deep-sea mining executives in its large delegation. These included Romeo Spinelli and Peter Jantzen, directors of Blue Minerals Jamaica, which in December 2020 became the latest company to obtain an exploration licence from the ISA...

The Dutch delegation included two employees of Royal IHC, a Dutch firm developing systems to harvest metals from the deep-sea sustainably as part of a programme subsidised by the European Union...

The United Kingdom signed up as advisors to its negotiating team two representatives of UK Seabed Resources, a deep-sea mining company sponsored by the British government. The company was acquired last March by Norway’s Loke Marine Minerals from the US weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin. The Norwegian company, which is backed by oil and gas investors, hopes to start mining activities in 2030...

Louisa Casson from Greenpeace said the ISA has long been “a fortress for industry interests, with the private companies based in the Global North lobbying hard for deals that would maximise their profit”..."