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deep sea mining
Governments Fail to 'Rise to the Moment' as Seabed Meeting Ends Without Mining Pause
"There is still a chance to stop this industry before it begins, but only if governments stand up for science, equity, and precaution now," one campaigner said.
Jul 26, 2025
Despite growing momentum, world governments failed to agree to a moratorium on deep-sea mining as the 30th session of the International Seabed Authority wrapped up on Friday.
The authority's July meeting was the first since U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to expedite permits for deep-sea mining under U.S. authority and The Metals Company (TMC) promptly applied for U.S. permits. Governments rebuked the U.S. and TMC for their unilateral approach and did not agree on a mining code that would allow the controversial practice to move forward under international law. However, campaigners said more decisive action is needed to protect the ocean and its biodiversity.
"Governments have yet to rise to the moment," Greenpeace International campaigner Louisa Casson said in a statement. "They remain disconnected from global concerns and the pressing need for courageous leadership to protect the deep ocean."
Casson continued: "We call on the international community to rise up and defend multilateralism against rogue actors like The Metals Company. Governments must respond by establishing a moratorium and reaffirming that authority over the international seabed lies collectively with all states—for the benefit of humanity as a whole."
Defending Multilateralism
The International Seabed Authority (ISA) gains its authority to regulate deep-sea mining under the United Nations Law of the Sea, to which the U.S. is not party. TMC, however, could suffer consequences for bypassing the international process, as other countries and companies may decide not to do business with it.
At the most recent session, the ISA's council decided not to revoke exploratory permits it had previously granted to TMC and its subsidiaries. However, it approved an investigation on Monday into whether mining contractors such as TMC subsidiaries Nauru Ocean Resources Inc. and Tonga Offshore Mining Limited were abiding by their obligations under international law.
"TMC has been testing the limits of what it can get away with, a bit like a child seeing how far it can go with bad behavior," Matthew Gianni, cofounder of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (DSCC), told The New York Times.
"The member countries of the ISA have basically sent a shot across the bow, a warning to TMC that going rogue may well result in the loss of its ISA exploration claims," Gianna explained, adding that the investigation also served as a warning to other companies who might consider following TMC's example.
"The Trump administration's pursuit of deep-sea mining isn't about global stewardship—it's about sidestepping it."
Casson agreed: "The international community's message to The Metals Company is clear: Violating international law, ignoring scientific consensus, and disregarding human rights will have consequences. This is also a warning to any companies or governments choosing to align themselves with [TMC CEO] Gerard Barron's business model—they must be prepared to bear the reputational fallout of trying to destroy the ocean."
At the same time, a U.S. representative spoke on Thursday, doubling down on Trump's dismissal of the international process and earning instant push back from Brazil, France, and China
"As a non-party to the Law of the Sea Convention, the United States is not bound by the convention rules dealing with seabed mining through the International Seabed Authority," the U.S. statement said in part.
The statement came days after Greenpeace released a report titled Deep Deception: How the Deep-Sea Mining Industry is Manipulating Geopolitics to Profit from Ocean Destruction, which details how TMC and other deep-sea mining companies are exploiting national security concerns to lobby U.S. lawmakers to fast track deep-sea mining.
"The U.S. statement confirms what Deep Deception has already exposed: The Trump administration's pursuit of deep-sea mining isn't about global stewardship—it's about sidestepping it," Arlo Hemphill, Greenpeace USA's project lead for the Stop Deep-Sea Mining campaign, said in a statement. "By rejecting the ISA's authority while claiming environmental responsibility, the U.S. is trying to have it both ways—and in doing so is advancing a 'smash and grab' agenda that puts ocean health and international cooperation at serious risk."
'Growing Resistance'
Ultimately, ocean advocates agree that the only way to protect the deep sea is for governments to agree to a precautionary pause on a practice they argue would do irreparable harm to ecosystems science barely understands.
The consensus for such a pause is building, with Croatia becoming the 38th nation to support one during the latest ISA meeting.
"The ISA is paralyzed by a small group clinging to outdated extraction agendas while blocking even the most basic reforms," Simon Holmström, the deep-sea mining policy officer for Seas at Risk, said in a statement. "The firm rejection of the U.S. and The Metals Company's power grab, alongside 38 countries now calling for a moratorium or precautionary pause, shows growing resistance to sacrificing the planet's least understood ecosystem for corporate short-term profit."
"To even consider a new form of ecocide on our already ailing planet is both reckless and irrational."
Several nations spoke strongly in favor a moratorium, including Palau, Panama, and France.
"Exploiting the seabed is not a necessity—it is a choice," said His Excellency Surangel S. Whipps Jr., president of the Republic of Palau, on Tuesday. "And it is reckless. It is gambling with the future of Pacific Island children, who will inherit the dire consequences of decisions made far from their shores."
A Pacific leader from Solomon Island also defended the interests of the Pacific Ocean community: "As Pacific people, we continue to carry the trauma of what extractive industries have already done to our homes. Mining companies that came with promises, stripped our lands and waters, and left behind ecological, cultural, and spiritual scars. We cannot let that cycle repeat itself, in the ocean that connects us. That sustains us. And that defines us."
Olivier Poivre d'Arvor of France called for a pause of 10-15 years: "Our message is clear: no deep-sea mining without science, without collective legitimacy, without equity [...] France is calling for a moratorium or a precautionary pause. What for? Because we refuse to mortgage the future for a few nodules extracted in a hurry, in favor of a few."
However, campaigners argued that many governments continued to fall short of the commitments they had made at the U.N. Ocean Conference (UNOC) in Nice in early June.
"Thirty-eight states have now joined the call for a moratorium or precautionary pause, with Croatia joining the coalition during this Assembly," said DSCC campaign director Sofia Tsenikli. "But too many other states, which were bold in their ocean promises at UNOC, are not putting this into action at the ISA. Governments must meet their promises by doing what it takes to implement a moratorium before it's too late."
Farah Obaidullah, founder and director of The Ocean and Us, argued that the ocean already faces too many other threats to add the additional burden of deep-sea mining.
"The health of the high seas including the seabed is critical to our own. Yet our shared heritage faces an onslaught of threats from climate and nature collapse, escalating tensions, and failed leadership," Obaidullah said. "To even consider a new form of ecocide on our already ailing planet is both reckless and irrational. We know that deep-sea mining will devastate life in the deep ocean, wipe out species before they have been discovered, and impact ocean functions, including carbon sequestration. When it comes to the ocean we have no time to lose. We cannot colonize and conquer our shared heritage which belongs to us all. There is only one responsible way forward, and that is to secure a moratorium on deep-sea mining."
DSCC's Gianni also argued strongly for a pause: "Being on the fence or remaining silent is not a politically defensible position. We are risking severe ecological damage, and future generations will ask what we did to stop it. There is still a chance to stop this industry before it begins, but only if governments stand up for science, equity, and precaution now, and take action to prevent companies within their jurisdiction from cooperating with rogue mining operations."
Greenpeace's Hemphill concluded: "Governments must secure a moratorium that leaves no room for a desperate industry to force through a mining code. The science is not ready. The legal framework is not in place. The world must not be bullied into an irreversible mistake for the benefit of a few."
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'Deep Deception': Report Details How Deep-Sea Mining Industry Exploits National Security Fears
"Mining the deep ocean in defiance of international consensus," said one retired defense official, "would erode U.S. credibility, fracture alliances, and set a dangerous precedent for unilateral resource exploitation."
Jul 22, 2025
As officials meet in Jamaica for a summit on the international seabed this week, a new report by the climate action group Greenpeace details how the deep-sea mining industry—failing to make a convincing case that its exploitation of the deep sea is necessary for a green energy transition—is trying a new strategy: lobbying Congress with the intent of classifying mining on the ocean floor as a national security priority.
In the Monday report, titled Deep Deception: How the Deep Sea Mining Industry is Manipulating Geopolitics to Profit from Ocean Destruction, Greenpeace describes how firms like the Metals Company (TMC), a Canada-based mining company, have spent years trying to convince policymakers around the world that mining in the deep ocean for minerals like copper, nickel, manganese, and cobalt is essential to manufacture electric vehicle batteries for a green transition.
But much of the key data underpinning that argument was produced by mining companies themselves or published by academic journals with financial interests in the industry, and support for the sector from electric carmakers has waned in recent years as the industry has failed to prove it can mine the ocean floor "in a way that ensures the effective protection of the marine environment," as one statement calling for a moratorium read.
Confronted with growing opposition to the notion that deep-sea mining—in which companies use equipment to comb the habitat of tens of thousands of species and potentially spread mining waste for miles—can serve as a key climate solution, Greenpeace said, "these fickle deep-sea entrepreneurs are jumping ship."
Now "they are eager to embrace politically opportunistic 'national security' storylines," reads the report.
"For TMC, the green transition was always a false narrative," said Arlo Hemphill, project lead for the Stop Deep-Sea Mining campaign at Greenpeace USA. "The numbers just didn't add up to justify opening the world's last unspoiled wilderness to mass-scale extractive exploitation. Now, the industry is repackaging itself as essential to national security and defense, exploiting real geopolitical tensions for personal profit. It's a dangerous and unnecessary strategy that could destroy the international seabed to enrich a few."
The report was released as the International Seabed Authority (ISA) convened in Kingston, Jamaica for its 30th Assembly, with governments under heavy pressure from the deep-sea mining industry to fast-track a Mining Code under which they could move forward with ramping up operations—even as 37 states and nearly 1,000 international scientists now support a moratorium on deep-sea mining.
As the ISA began its meeting on Monday, Pew Environment explained the risks carried by deep-sea mining—from noise and light pollution to the endangerment of species scientists haven't yet discovered.
"The deep sea is one of Earth's most pristine and fragile ecosystems," said Grace Evans, senior associate of ocean governance at Pew Charitable Trusts. "Once we damage it, we can't go back."
TMC began "targeting defense and industrial policy stakeholders" in 2022 as it was still pushing its green energy transition narrative.
The company spent nearly half a million dollars over two years to hire lobbying firms to influence votes on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in 2023 and 2024—and succeeded in pushing the Department of Defense (DOD) to deliver a report "assessing the processing of seabed resources of polymetallic nodules domestically."
TMC's lobbying push also convinced 31 Republican members of Congress to write to then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in 2023, asking him "to develop a plan to address the national security ramifications of [China's] interest and investment in seabed mining."
In March, TMC announced it would seek permits from the U.S. to mine the international deep sea under American authorization—a move that "brazenly" bypassed international treaties and consensus, said Greenpeace.
Greenpeace's report comes four months after that application and three months after President Donald Trump signed an executive order signaling the government's intent to "rapidly" develop and invest in U.S. capabilities to explore and collect seabed mineral resources through "streamlined permitting," with the White House asserting the U.S. "has a core national security and economic interest in maintaining leadership in deep-sea science and technology and seabed mineral resources."
"We will not stand by while a neocolonial deep-sea land grab takes place that will harm our communities, disrupt our cultural connection to the ocean, and endanger our livelihoods."
Under the order, the Trump administration signaled its "readiness to unilaterally authorize deep sea mining in both U.S. and international waters," reads the Greenpeace report—potentially violating the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which the U.S. has not signed.
Days after the order was signed, TMC applied to the U.S. government for deep-sea mining exploration licenses and commercial mining permits. The Greenpeace report details how the Trump administration and companies including TMC are working together to once again promote a false narrative about the necessity of deep-sea mining—one that is actually meant to provide "a lifeline for an industry in crisis."
Global defense industries "likely represent only a tiny fraction of overall global consumption" of the metals found in polymetallic nodules in the deep sea, according to the report—meaning that as with the electric auto industry, the defense sector's true demand for deep-sea mining is much smaller than the industry and the Trump administration would have the public believe.
"The U.S. defense demand stands for a tiny percentage of our domestic consumption of critical metals. And to be honest, U.S. defense is not a big user of anything," Jack Lifton, executive director of the Critical Minerals Institute, told Greenpeace. "Given what the defense industry and the DOD and the different contractors are doing in terms of securing metals from elsewhere, friendshoring, reshoring, recycling, there is no need to mine the seabed for cobalt or nickel or rare earths."
While metals that can be accessed through deep-sea mining do have military uses, "the scale of this military use is relatively modest compared to global civilian demand—dwarfed by the commercial manufacturing sector," reads the report.
For example, the U.S. currently imports manganese ore from Gabon, South Africa, and Mexico, and "a substantial deep sea mining development could nearly double the global supply of manganese in its first year, resulting in an immediate oversupply" and a reduction in the value of the metal and the global mining operation. The U.S. also already has a stockpile of 322,000 tons of manganese in Arizona.
In a foreword to the Greenpeace report, retired U.S. Army Major General Randy Manner wrote that "the bedrock of national security" lies in "global stability, the rule of law, and ecological resilience"—not in accumulating new minerals and weaponry.
"Mining the deep ocean in defiance of international consensus would degrade all three. It would erode U.S. credibility, fracture alliances, and set a dangerous precedent for unilateral resource exploitation," said Manner.
In the Pacific region—where deep-sea mining companies aim to operate—several states and leaders have called for a ban. moratorium, or precautionary pause on the practice, with Pacific Island Heritage Coalition Chair Solomon P. Kaho'ohalahala warning that "the Pacific is not a sacrifice zone."
"We will not stand by while a neocolonial deep-sea land grab takes place that will harm our communities, disrupt our cultural connection to the ocean, and endanger our livelihoods," said Kaho'ohalahala. "This July, ISA member states must make it clear where they stand—for their foundational principles of equity, multilateralism, and environmental protection or unbounded corporate greed."
At the ISA meeting in Kingston, Greenpeace International campaigner Louisa Casson said governments around the world "have sent a clear signal that the deep-sea mining industry will not get international approval any time soon"—even amid industry pressure and the Trump administration's push.
TMC's application to the U.S. "shatters" the firm's credibility "and serves as a stark warning to others considering this reckless path."
"Governments have also reaffirmed that there should be no deep sea mining in the global oceans while major political and scientific questions remain unresolved," said Casson. "Deep sea mining is a dangerous gamble we cannot afford, and the only responsible way forward is a global moratorium."
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Trump's Rogue Deep-Sea Mining Order Endangers Our Ocean and Our Future
We must defend international law. We must defend the oceans. And we must reject a broken economic model that gambles our planet's future for corporate gain.
May 01, 2025
On April 24, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to fast-track deep-sea mining in U.S. and international waters that sidelines international law and puts fragile ocean ecosystems, Indigenous rights, and millions of lives that depend on a healthy ocean at risk.
While this is being sold to the American public as a bold move to secure America's mineral supply chain, address climate change, or boost the clean energy transition, science and the tech and auto industries have already debunked that ruse. In the current climate, it will surprise very few that this is instead another giveaway to well-heeled corporate interests that will gamble away the health of our oceans and future for the short-term profit of a few corporations.
Once destroyed, deep-sea ecosystems are likely gone forever, taking with them species and processes vital to planetary health.
The Broligarchy is not just burning fossil fuels and sending rockets into space or dismantling American institutions. They are also gearing up to mine the depths of our last great wilderness in the deep sea. And as we've seen, they won't let details like the well-founded concerns about the cost to people, the climate, or our shared future get in their way.
Breaking the Rules of the Global Commons
For decades, the international community has worked through the United Nation's International Seabed Authority (ISA) to regulate whether and how deep-sea mining might proceed, recognizing the deep sea as the "common heritage of humankind," not a resource to be plundered by any one country or corporation.
Trump's executive order tramples that principle of shared stewardship, reviving a Cold War-era U.S. law that bypasses the U.N. framework and green-lights corporate plunder of the seafloor. This reckless move undermines global legal norms, threatens to unravel international cooperation, and could trigger an unregulated race for the ocean's resources at a time when stronger protections are most needed. As ISA Secretary General Leticia Carvalho warns, dismantling multilateral ocean governance threatens the very foundations of global cooperation, setting a dangerous precedent for the future of all shared global commons.
A Business Model Built on Sand
The economic case for deep-sea mining is collapsing. There is no current shortage of minerals like cobalt or nickel, and advances in battery chemistry, recycling, circular economy models, and alternative materials are rapidly reducing projected future demands for deep-sea minerals. Even if mining started today, it would likely take more than a decade for the industry to bring deep-sea minerals to market at scale.
Early ventures like Nautilus Minerals and Loke Marine Minerals have already failed, exposing the financial risks. On Tuesday, The Metals Company (TMC) upped the ante on its risky bet to fast-track deep-sea mining when it submitted its application under the U.S. Seabed Mining Code to begin commercial mining in areas licensed by the International Seabed Authority. For the president, with his track record on casinos, backing a company like TMC is a gamble whose cost will be borne by coastal communities, Indigenous rights, and investors alike.
Americans already face $150 billion annually in costs from climate change. And our children and grandchildren born in 2024 may have to bear the weight of $500,000 over their lifetime. We can't afford to absorb the cost of another failed venture while the billionaire class does not even pay their fair share of taxes and does little to fix the problems their corporations have created.
A New Colonialism in the Pacific
Perhaps most shamefully, Trump's executive order green-lights a new wave of colonialism, opening the deep sea of Pacific waters to corporate plunder without the consent of Pacific Peoples—communities whose lives, cultures, and economies are deeply intertwined with the ocean.
Trump's executive order shows exactly why the world needs a strong, binding global moratorium on deep-sea mining.
The Pacific has already spoken: American Samoa, Hawai'i, and several Pacific Island nations have called for moratoriums to protect their fisheries and heritage. Indigenous leaders have made it clear—the deep sea is not a sacrifice zone. Yet TMC, which leveraged its partnership with Nauru to fast-track negotiations at the ISA, is now looking to shift its strategy and cut deals under U.S. law, sidelining Pacific voices.
By moving to open adjacent U.S. federal waters for mining, without meaningful consultation, the United States perpetuates a familiar and painful pattern of resource extraction without consent. We cannot allow history to repeat itself in the deep sea.
No Science. No Safeguards. No Justification.
Despite industry assurances, we still know remarkably little about the deep ocean. In mining target zones such as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, over 90% of species have yet to be formally described by science, and essential life-sustaining ecosystem functions like carbon sequestration and nutrient cycling are barely understood.
There is no credible scientific evidence demonstrating that deep-sea mining can be conducted without causing irreversible harm, nor any proven way to prevent, mitigate, or repair it. Once destroyed, deep-sea ecosystems are likely gone forever, taking with them species and processes vital to planetary health.
This week's congressional hearing on deep-sea mining underscores the urgent need for democratic oversight of an industry advancing without sufficient scientific, legal, or public scrutiny. Congress must act to protect the public interest, not hand over our oceans to private companies chasing speculative profits.
The Path Forward: A Global Moratorium
With a dearth of independent science, no enforceable global safeguards, and no justification, deep-sea mining isn't just risky--it's reckless.
Trump's executive order shows exactly why the world needs a strong, binding global moratorium on deep-sea mining.
We must defend international law. We must defend the oceans. And we must reject a broken economic model that gambles our planet's future for corporate gain.
The deep sea belongs to all of us, and we have a duty to protect it, not destroy it. The future of the oceans—and the future stability of global commons governance—demands nothing less.
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