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Billed as the “Amazon COP”, the UN climate talks will see the debut of Brazil’s flagship fund to “reward” tropical countries for keeping their forests intact.

The Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) will be launched at the COP30 leaders’ summit on 6 November.

The fund aims to raise and invest $125bn from a range of sources, with excess returns channelled to up to 74 developing countries that sufficiently protect their forests.

This, according to Brazil, would make it one of the biggest multilateral investment funds for nature.

(For comparison, the Green Climate Fund’s portfolio is around $18bn.)

While Brazil expects TFFF to “transform the world’s approach to environmental conservation”, many critics remain unconvinced.

They argue that conservation funding for climate-critical forests should not depend on “betting on stock market prices” and instead call for new biodiversity finance.

Here, Carbon Brief takes a closer look at where the fund came from, how it will be set up and how it is supposed to work.

What is the Tropical Forest Forever Facility?

First officially proposed by Brazil at COP28 in Dubai in 2023, the Tropical Forest Forever Facility aims to pay up to 74 developing tropical forest countries for keeping their existing old-growth forests intact.

It plans to do this by raising $25bn in capital from wealthy “sponsor” governments and philanthropies, which – it hopes – will attract an additional $100bn in private investment.

Returns on these investments will go towards paying back investors and making “forest payments” to countries that increase or maintain their forest cover.

On 4 November, Brazil’s finance minister Fernando Haddad told Bloomberg that “he believed the fund could raise $10bn by next year”, less than half the original target.

While the facility’s official launch is slated for COP30, its rules are still being finalised after several iterations of “concept notes” and consultations.

However, the idea that underpins the fund is not new.

Former World Bank treasurer Kenneth Lay first floated the idea of a Tropical Forest Finance Facility around 15 years ago.

Lay and others later envisioned the TFFF as a “pay-for-performance” sovereign wealth fund for forests. In their design of the TFFF, loans from developed countries and private investors would have been invested in the debt markets of tropical forest countries, with excess returns being allocated annually as “rainforest rewards”.

In their thinking, TFFF offered a “highly-visible, large-scale reward for successfully tackling deforestation without increasing funding demands” on developed countries, according to a 2018 article for the Center for Global Development.

Definition of the Tropical Forest Finance Facility, taken from its website: "What Is It? The Tropical Forest Finance Facility (TFFF) is a pay-for-performance mechanism that would operate like a multilateral sovereign wealth fund, the net returns on which would be awarded to tropical forest countries for protecting their natural forests. Tropical forests are undervalued assets in addressing sustainable development challenges, including climate change and maintaining biodiversity. Crucially, the TFFF can provide an incentive to tropical forest countries without encumbering the finances of the countries that sponsor it. And modern satellite technology provides an easy and accurate way to measure successful outcomes."
The Tropical Forest Finance Facility, as defined in a 2018 article. Source: Center for Global Development (2018)

Others central to the TFFF’s current design are Christopher Egerton-Warburton – founder of London-based Lion’s Head Global Partners, who is credited with engineering the facility’s financial structure – and Garo Batmanian, director of Brazil’s forestry service.

What is it designed to achieve?

The ultimate goal of the TFFF is to pay for the conservation of the world’s major rainforests, which provide a range of ecosystem services, including carbon storage.

In a statement from the COP30 presidency, André Aquino, special advisor on economy and environment at Brazil’s ministry of environment, said:

“What the TFFF seeks is for the world to remunerate part of these services. It is to remunerate forests as the basis of life, as the basis of the economy, for our well-being.”

On the ground, this mechanism could help landowners to conserve trees and forests by ensuring that the value they bring as standing forests is higher than from cutting them down.

The facility also intends to finance long-term objectives for forest conservation, including policies and programmes for sustainable use and restoration.

More than 70 developing countries that are home to more than 1bn hectares of tropical and sub-tropical forests could be potential recipients from this facility. These countries span the Amazon, Congo and Mekong basins, as well as many other regions.

The following map shows the countries that host tropical rainforests and are potentially eligible to receive funds from the TFFF.

Global map showing around 74 countries with tropical rainforests marked with green dots are potential recipients of the TFFF. Source: COP30 official website.
Around 74 countries with tropical rainforests marked with green dots are potential recipients of the TFFF. Source: COP30 official website.

To be selected as beneficiaries, countries will require transparent financial management systems and must commit to allocating 20% of the funds to Indigenous peoples and traditional communities, according to the draft rules.

These countries would need to have a deforestation rate – averaged over the previous three years – of no more than 0.5% of their total forested area, with standing forest areas having a canopy cover of at least 20-30% in each hectare to be eligible for payments.

The TFFF’s third concept note says that areas that transition from above to below this 20-30% threshold would be “considered deforested”.

In a recent Yale Environment 360 article, forest ecologists warned that the low level of this threshold – for what counts as a forested area – is “not scientifically credible” and “would allow payments even where industrial logging is occurring in primary forests”.

However, TFFF argues that “including forest areas with lower canopy cover does provide an incentive for maintaining these areas”.

Additionally, payments would be reduced for each hectare of forest loss and for each hectare degraded by fire.

The funds for Indigenous peoples would be “put aside in a different account, following different rules”, Aquino said during a press briefing attended by Carbon Brief.

Brazil’s ministry of environment and climate change invited five countries with rainforests to support the creation of the fund: Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Individual national governments that are beneficiaries of the scheme would be free to define how and where the generated funds would be distributed.

How will the fund work?

The TFFF is split into two entities, with a secretariat to coordinate between them.

The facility is the first of these. It is tasked with setting up the rewards system, eligibility criteria, monitoring methodologies and disbursement rules, as well as engaging with participating recipient countries.

The other is the TFFF’s main financial arm, the Tropical Forest Investment Fund (TFIF) – responsible for raising and managing the TFFF’s resources.

So far, five potential sponsor countries have shown interest in supporting the fund: France, Germany, Norway, the United Arab Emirates and the UK.

These countries, along with five potential recipient countries – Brazil, Colombia, the DRC, Ghana, Indonesia and Malaysia – formed an interim steering committee to shape TFFF’s development.

Graphic showing the TFFF governance scheme
The TFFF’s governance structure, according to an August concept note. Source: TFFF (2025)

According to its third concept note, published in October, the TFIF would be a “blended finance vehicle”, pooling public, philanthropic and private funding.

The TFIF is split into two tranches. The first is a “sponsor” tranche, where donor countries and philanthropies are invited to contribute long-term, low-cost capital investment to the tune of $25bn, either from long-term loans, guarantees or outright grants.

So far, Brazil’s initial pledge of $1bn to the facility is the only such pledge. Other governments, such as the UK, have played an “active part” in establishing the TFFF.

(Five days before COP30 kicked off, Bloomberg reported that the UK would not be investing in the TFFF, after the government’s treasury department warned that the investment is “not something the UK can afford at a time when it’s trying to tackle its surging debt burden”.)

This $25bn from sponsor countries, in turn, would be expected to absorb risk, cover losses and serve as a catalyst to raise $100bn from institutional investors in the global bond market.

(This sum raised from private investors is described as the “senior market debt” tranche of investment: if the markets see a downturn, private investors are protected first, making their interests “senior” to donor and recipient countries.)

TFIF and its asset managers then invest this $125bn of capital into a mixed portfolio of investments, including public and corporate market bonds, but excluding those with a significant environmental impact. (In a joint letter, issued in October, advocacy and research groups called for a more detailed exclusion criteria.)

Income from these investments, in turn, will be used to pay investors first, then interest to donor countries and, finally, to pay participating forest countries. The payments to participating countries will be roughly $4 per hectare of standing forest (subject to annual adjustment for inflation), as verified by satellite imagery.

The World Bank confirmed in September 2025 that it will serve as a trustee to the facility and host its interim secretariat.

Brazilian president Lula da Silva shakes hands with the World Bank’s Ajay Banga at a high-level dialogue on the TFFF in the UN General Assembly in September 2025.
Brazilian president Lula da Silva shakes hands with the World Bank’s Ajay Banga at a high-level dialogue on the TFFF in the UN General Assembly in September 2025. Credit: William Volcov / Alamy Stock Photo

Liane Schalatek, a climate finance expert and associate director of German policy thinktank Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung’s Washington office, tells Carbon Brief:

“It’s a very clear hierarchy: you serve the money raised on the market and capital investors first before you go to the intended purpose of the fund – and that is compensating countries for basically leaving their tropical forest standing. To me, it seems that the focus is on the money, not necessarily on the outcome. That is really worrisome.”

While sponsor countries are guaranteed their money back over a 40-year period, payouts to forest countries depend on investment returns. These are subject to market risks and volatility and, therefore, are not guaranteed.

According to Frederic Hache, co-founder of the EU Green Finance Observatory thinktank, payouts promised by the TFFF are “really not appropriate to the emergency of the [biodiversity and climate] crises” and do not address their “root drivers”. Hache tells Carbon Brief:

“Even if you meet the very hard criteria as a country to get this money, obtaining this conservation funding is conditional upon financial market conditions and the skill of an asset manager. That’s not very generous and that’s not very appropriate.”

Hache warns that if the fund does not make enough money or experiences losses, the “first thing that is impacted is the forest payment”, which could be put on hold, while “sponsor capital protects private investors with taxpayer money”.

What issues might the fund face?

Civil-society organisations and climate finance experts have warned of several risks and gaps within the facility.

Finance fragmentation

Experts who spoke to Carbon Brief expressed concerns that TFFF could erode the legitimacy of existing, but under-resourced, multilateral funds for climate and biodiversity, as well as dilute the legal obligations of developed countries to pay their “fair share” of nature finance.

While the TFFF hopes to contribute to the goals of all three UN conventions – climate, biodiversity and land degradation – the fund is not officially part of any of the three treaties.

To Schalatek, the fact that the “biggest thing that is going to come out of COP30” is “outside” the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and depends to a large extent on private investment is cause for disappointment.

A keenly awaited report ahead of COP30 is a roadmap towards a wider climate finance target of $1.3tn a year, which could include various sources beyond the jurisdiction of the UN climate process.

Schalatek tells Carbon Brief:

“While we’re trying to have a discussion about protecting the provision of public finance from developed to developing countries [after Baku and amid aid cuts], TFFF is almost contributing to a further undermining of the financial mechanism of the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement.”

Sarah Colenbrander, director of the climate and sustainability programme at the UK-based global development thinktank ODI, tells Carbon Brief:

“The creation of the Tropical Forest Forever Facility risks not increasing total resources for climate and biodiversity finance, but rather fragmenting the funds already available.”

Potential financial risk

Given the fund’s long-term horizon, a significant challenge is managing financial risk down the line.

This could take the form of a debt crisis in emerging markets, which could “wipe out” sponsor capital and “halt rainforest flows, possibly before they even begin”, economists Max Alexander Matthey and Prof Aidan Hollis wrote in a Substack post in September.

Higher return rates for investors – as mentioned in the third draft of TFFF’s concept note – in combination with high financial fees and operational costs, have left several experts questioning what remains in the way of “rewards” to rainforest countries.

Hache tells Carbon Brief that the TFFF might be “fantastic” for investors who get a “AAA-rated investment without sacrificing any returns”, but real risk is borne by tropical forest countries.

In addition, the mooted payments of $4 a hectare is “ridiculous and not enough to displace alternatives” such as growing cash crops for export, he says, adding:

“$125bn sounds much better than, ‘Oh, we put $2.5bn on the table conditionally’. While there is very little political appetite for giving grant money, this is one of these mechanisms where innovation can obfuscate the lack of ambition and generosity by global-north countries.”

Commodification and transparency

Other experts fear that the new facility could contribute to the commodification of forests and a possible lack of adequate accountability.

The Global Forest Coalition (GFC), an alliance of not-for-profit organisations and Indigenous groups working on forest issues worldwide, have urged countries, Indigenous peoples and civil society to reject the TFFF.

In a press release in October, the GFC said that the TFFF views forests as “financial assets” and warned that the fund is “subject to investment returns, liquidation risks and payouts that are not even guaranteed”.

The press release quotes Mary Louise Malig, policy director at the GFC, who said:

“This is not about conserving forests; it is about conserving the power of elites over forests. It is the continuation of a free market model dressed up as climate finance.”

Information on transparency and governance of the TFFF is unavailable at the moment, says Tyala Ifwanga, forest governance campaigner at Fern, a civil-society organisation that works to protect forest people’s rights in the EU. She tells Carbon Brief that this makes it difficult to assess whether the facility can ensure payments meet the fund’s objectives, adding:

“Corruption is not the only issue we should have in mind here. Some tropical forest countries have autocratic regimes and very limited civic space.”

Pablo Solón, executive director of the Solón Foundation, is also quoted in the GFC press release. He warned:

“The TFFF is a distraction that diverts attention and resources from real solutions like regulation, corporate accountability and direct financing for Indigenous and local initiatives.”

Low Indigenous involvement

Another concern highlighted by the GFC is that while Indigenous peoples and local communities are expected to have “consultative roles”, the “decision-making power rests with governments and financial institutions”.

According to Fern’s Ifwanga, the Global Alliance for Territorial Community – a political platform bringing together coalitions of Indigenous peoples and local communities for defending nature – was involved in developing the TFFF concept notes related to Indigenous peoples and local communities.

She says that although the alliance agrees with the facility, “they are very aware that a lot of work remains to be done to ensure that their voices are heard at every level of the mechanism”.

She also encourages countries to increase direct access to funds for Indigenous communities.

Schalatek says that it is “sinister” that forest communities are being asked to “provide continued stewardship” and preserve forests “without any predictability on how much they’re going to receive for it”, while fund managers can get their money back. She concludes:

“This [TFFF] is exactly the kind of vehicle that gives developed countries the sick leave to not contribute to the GCF [Green Climate Fund], not contribute to the Adaptation Fund…We all know the world has changed, but that doesn’t apply to legal obligations you have signed on to.

“One could probably argue that the Brazilians put a lot more effort into the TFFF than in, for example, thinking about how to deal with the finance agenda within COP30.”

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New summit in Colombia seeks to revive stalled UN talks on fossil fuel transition

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A landmark conference hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands will aim to lay the foundations for renewed talks on transitioning away from fossil fuels at COP31, though organisers say it remains unclear what concrete outcomes it will deliver.

The First Conference on the Transition Away from Fossil Fuels will take place in April in the city of Santa Marta, on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, where first-moving countries, states and cities will seek to restart last year’s stalled push for a global roadmap away from coal, oil and gas.

Bastiaan Hassing, head of international climate policy for the Dutch government, told an online briefing last week that the “most obvious” impact of the conference would be for its hosts to report back to the UN climate summit on what was agreed in Santa Marta.

“Ideally, but this is also more complicated, we discuss with each other (at COP) what next steps we could take in the implementation, for instance, of paragraph 28 of the COP decision in Dubai, which talks about the global transition away from fossil fuels,” Hassings said.

He noted that there are many options for how the conference can influence UN talks on implementing the global transition away from fossil fuels, but the exact possibilities would depend on the outcome of the talks. “Rest assured that we will be looking into this,” he added.

At last year’s COP30, a bloc of 80 countries, including small island states, as well as some Latin American, European, and African countries, called for the creation of a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels.

But major oil and gas producers and consumers blocked the initiative in Belém. As a compromise, Brazil’s COP presidency promised to draft proposals for two voluntary roadmaps: one to end deforestation and another to guide the transition away from fossil fuels.

    Brazil has launched consultations seeking input for those plans, asking governments and stakeholders about technological and economic barriers, climate justice considerations and examples of best practice. Last week, COP30 president André Corrêa do Lago told Brazilian media that he would hold discussions on his roadmap proposal at the Santa Marta conference.

    Colombia’s environment minister Irene Vélez Torres told reporters last week that “this is the moment to be honest about the challenges involved in transitioning away from fossil fuels”.

    “It is not easy. It involves commitments from both the Global North and South. It involves interests and tensions at the subnational level,” she added. “Yet none of this diminishes its urgency or the need to reach agreements at the international multilateral level”.

    Process to end fossil fuels

    Vélez Torres said she hoped the Santa Marta meeting would help establish an ongoing process to advance discussions that often stall in the formal UN negotiations, where decisions are made by consensus and fossil fuel producers resist stronger language.

    “This is the first conference, and we want it to be followed by another. We also want to establish a technical secretariat to sustain these debates,” said Vélez Torres, who added that the initiative would be “articulated with [the] COP30 and COP31” presidencies.

    Colombia has been one of the few fossil fuel-producing countries that pledged to halt all new coal, oil and gas exploration. The move triggered backlash from industry and political opponents – with former president Iván Duque calling the decision “political and economic suicide”. The South American country depends on fossil fuels for about 10% of fiscal revenues and 4% of GDP, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

    Organisers of the Santa Marta conference said they expect between 40 and 80 high-level representatives from governments, both at national and subnational levels. Colombian president Gustavo Petro is expected to participate, and invitations have been extended to California governor Gavin Newsom and Dutch prime minister Rob Jetten.

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    No turning back

    The conference comes amid renewed volatility in global energy markets. As the US and Israel’s war in Iran disrupts oil and gas supplies and threatens to cause severe global economic damage, analysts say governments should seek to reduce their dependency on fossil fuels through investments in renewables and energy efficiency.

    The upcoming Santa Marta conference should build momentum to plan that transition away from fossil fuels and signal that “there is no turning back”, said Peter Newell, professor of international relations at the University of Sussex and one of the main proponents of a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty.

    “Its outcomes, which might include a declaration on key principles and next steps (for the fossil fuel transition), should give renewed vigour to efforts within the UN climate negotiations to drive the agenda forward,” Newell said.

    Because major fossil fuel producers have effectively “vetoed” discussions on a fossil fuel phase-out at COPs, he added, willing countries must move forward independently with initiatives like the Santa Marta conference.

    Andreas Sieber, head of political strategy at the NGO 350.org, agreed that the push away from fossil fuels is “both necessary and economically inevitable”, adding that a conference on phasing out fossil fuels would have been “unthinkable just five years ago”.

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    Countries moving forward

    COP30 host Brazil has taken the lead in developing its own national roadmap away from fossil fuels, which President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva requested his government to draft late last year. The roadmap is expected to be formally developed this year.

    The plan – expected to include a dedicated energy transition fund – was initially due in February but has not yet been made public as ministers continue technical discussions.

    In Europe, governments have also stepped up efforts to curb fossil fuel use following the energy shocks triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East.

    Leo Roberts, a fossil fuel transition analyst at the climate think tank E3G, said the recent surge in gas prices linked to the Iran conflict reinforces the case for accelerating the transition to boost energy security and protect people from price shocks.

    “Hopefully, Santa Marta is able to really demonstrate that not only is there momentum at the international sphere through the COP30 roadmap process, but there’s huge momentum away from fossil fuels in the real world,” he said.

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    The US’s critical minerals club threatens an equitable clean energy transition

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    Nick Dearden is the director of Global Justice Now.

    The US push for nations to join a club that would coordinate the trade of critical minerals outside China signals a giant shift in Washington’s vision for how to govern the global economy But it will, unfortunately, also hinder the clean energy transition.

    Critical minerals such as lithium, nickel, copper and rare earths are needed to manufacture clean energy technologies such as solar panels, wind turbines and batteries on which the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy depends.

    But these minerals also have applications for a wide range of advanced technologies, not least military equipment and digital infrastructure. In recent years, AI deployment and the build out of data centres have become the primary political justification for mineral extraction.

    No US official mentioned clean energy technologies as they promoted the new minerals club in Washington last month. Instead, the trading bloc aims to break China’s dominance over mineral supply chains and ensure US access to the resources it needs for digital and military sectors.

    Analysis by Global Justice Now found that almost one in five of the 33 minerals that the UK identified as critical in 2024 are not needed to achieve the International Energy Agency’s decarbonisation pathways. A further 15 play only a very small role and only seven require significant production increases for the clean energy transition.

    Prioritise minerals for the energy transition

    The urgency of addressing climate change means we must prioritise the use of minerals to rapidly and equitably wean the global economy off coal, oil and gas while reducing resource overconsumption in the Global North. The US approach could make this prioritisation a lot harder.

    For Washington, this isn’t about addressing climate change, but America’s ever deepening rivalry with China, a renewable energy superpower. In contrast, Donald Trump has called climate change “a hoax” and overseen unprecedented climate deregulation in favour of fossil fuels.

      The minerals trading bloc risks diverting mineral resources towards carbon-intensive military and technology build-up in the US, which is directly at odds with the need to use these resources to manufacture clean energy technologies.

      What’s more, for the green transition to be just, fair and equitable, resource-rich governments must be able to refine and add value to their resources, creating jobs and economic development in the process. But Trump’s trading bloc is intended to tell “partner” countries what role they should play in the global mineral supply chains to best serve US interests.

      Serving US interests rather than clean energy

      Countries with the smallest and least developed economies stand to lose out.

      More than a dozen countries have signed bilateral deals with the Trump administration. The terms of the deals appear to get better the richer a country is.

      At the poorer end is the deal with DRC – an outright piece of imperialism with one-sided obligations that override the country’s mineral sovereignty by giving the US first dibs on a range of strategic mining sites and the energy needed to power these sites.

      ‘America needs you’: US seeks trade alliance to break China’s critical mineral dominance

      In the middle, Malaysia committed to facilitate American involvement in its mineral sector and refrain from banning or imposing quotas on exports of raw minerals to the US. This risks restricting the development of Malaysia’s refining capacities, making value addition harder.

      At the top end is the UK, which has signed a deal that includes a commitment to streamline mineral permitting, but appears more focused on facilitating financial services to members of the trading bloc.

      Wherever countries sit in the pecking order, the agreements signed with the US limit governments’ strategic sovereignty over their resources and stifle their ability to create a more sustainable economy which meets people’s needs.

      Tools for a way forward

      There is some hope, however. Trump’s mineral trading bloc would operate with profoundly different rules than the neoliberal trade deals, which we have become used to.

      Some of its components – like price floors and state ownership – have not been seen in trade deals for a long time. In the right hands, these tools could help governments plan, coordinate and prioritise a globally just green transition and break away from the ‘market knows best’ logic which has long locked poorer countries into low-value exports of raw materials.

      If governments work together, outside the coercive US trade bloc, to adopt some of these tools and policies, they might be able to draw local benefits from their mineral wealth and build a genuinely fair and equitable trade in transition minerals.

      The post The US’s critical minerals club threatens an equitable clean energy transition appeared first on Climate Home News.

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      Greenpeace urges governments to defend international law, as evidence suggests breaches by deep sea mining contractors

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      SYDNEY/FIJI, Monday 9 March 2026 — As the International Seabed Authority (ISA) opens its 31st Session today, Greenpeace International is calling on member states to take firm and swift action if breaches by subsidiaries and subcontractors of The Metals Company (TMC) are established. Evidence compiled and submitted to the ISA’s Secretary General suggests that violations of exploration contracts may have occurred.

      Louisa Casson, Campaigner, Greenpeace International, said: “In July, governments at the ISA sent a clear message: rogue companies trying to sidestep international law will face consequences. Turning that promise into action at this meeting is far more important than rushing through a Mining Code designed to appease corporate interests rather than protect the common good. As delegations from around the world gather today, they must unite and confront the US and TMC’s neo-colonial resource grab and make clear that deep sea mining is a reckless gamble humanity cannot afford.”

      The ISA launched an inquiry at its last Council meeting in July 2025, in response to TMC USA seeking unilateral deep sea mining licences from the Trump administration. If the US administration unilaterally allows mining of the international seabed, it would be considered in violation of international law.

      Greenpeace International has compiled and submitted evidence to the ISA Secretary-General, Leticia Carvalho, to support the ongoing inquiry into deep sea mining contractors. This evidence shows that those supporting these unprecedented rogue efforts to start deep sea mining unilaterally via President Trump could be in breach of their obligations with the ISA.

      The analysis focuses on TMC’s subsidiaries — Nauru Ocean Resources Inc (NORI) and Tonga Offshore Mining Ltd (TOML) — as well as Blue Minerals Jamaica (BMJ), a company linked to Dutch-Swiss offshore engineering firm Allseas, one of TMC’s subcontractors and largest shareholders. The information compiled indicates that their activities may violate core contractual obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). If these breaches are confirmed, NORI and TOML’s exploration contracts, which expire in July 2026 and January 2027 respectively, the ISA should take action, including considering not renewing the contract.

      Letícia Carvalho has recently publicly advocated for governments to finalise a streamlined deep sea mining code this year and has expressed her own concerns with the calls from 40 governments for a moratorium. At a time when rogue actors are attempting to bypass or weaken the international system, establishing rules and regulations that will allow mining to start could mean falling into the trap of international bullies. A Mining Code would legitimise and drive investment into a flagging industry, supporting rogue actor companies like TMC and weakening deterrence against unilateral mining outside the ISA framework.

      Casson added:Rushing to finalise a Mining Code serves the interests of multinational corporations, not the principles of multilateralism. With what we know now, rules to mine the deep sea cannot coexist with ocean protection. Governments are legally obliged to only authorise deep sea mining if it can demonstrably benefit humanity – and that is non-negotiable. As the long list of scientific, environmental and social concerns with this industry keeps growing, what is needed is a clear political signal that the world will not be intimidated into rushing a mining code by unilateral threats and will instead keep moving towards a moratorium on deep sea mining.” 

      —ENDS—

      Key findings from the full briefing:

      • Following TMC USA’s application to mine the international seabed unilaterally, NORI and TOML have amended their agreements to provide payments to Nauru and Tonga, respectively, if US-authorised commercial mining goes ahead. This sets up their participation in a financial mechanism predicated on mining in contradiction to UNCLOS.
      • NORI and TOML have signed intercompany intellectual property and data-sharing agreements with TMC USA, and the data obtained by NORI and TOML under the ISA exploration contracts has been key to facilitating TMC USA’s application under US national regulations.
      • Just a few individuals hold key decision-making roles across the TMC and all relevant subsidiaries, making claims of independent management ungrounded. NORI, TOML, and TMC USA, while legally distinct, are managed as an integrated corporate group with a single, coordinated strategy under the direct control and strategic direction of TMC.

      Greenpeace urges governments to defend international law, as evidence suggests breaches by deep sea mining contractors

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