Welcome to Carbon Brief’s Cropped.
We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cropped email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
Key developments
Drought around the world
GLOBAL DROUGHT: Drought affected 1.84 billion people in 2022 and 2023 – nearly one-quarter of all people on Earth – “the vast majority” of whom live in low- and middle-income countries, the New York Times wrote. The figures come from the UN’s “Global Drought Snapshot” report. The New York Times explained that the droughts “come at a time of record-high global temperatures and rising food-price inflation”, with conflicts such as Ukraine “punishing the world’s poorest people”. The outlet said: “Some of the current abnormally dry, hot conditions are made worse by the burning of fossil fuels that cause climate change.” It added that the onset of El Niño last year “has also very likely contributed” to the heat and drought.
SHIP-SHAPE: Drought is also impacting the flow of global shipping, as “critical shipping delays” have plagued the Panama Canal, Bloomberg reported. The canal handles around $270bn of global trade each year – about 5% of total commerce. “Potential solutions”, the outlet wrote, “include an artificial lake to pump water into the canal and cloud seeding to boost rainfall”. But, it added, it is unclear if either option is feasible – and neither would be able to be implemented quickly. Moller-Maersk, the Danish shipping giant, has announced that it will “turn to rail to move some cargo”, according to Reuters. The newswire added that the Panama Canal Authority is “developing short- and long-term solutions to limit climate anomalies’ impact on the trade route”.
LOOKING FORWARD: The Global Drought Monitor Consortium released its 2023 summary report, which found that the record heat experienced last year “affected the water cycle in various ways”, including by exacerbating drought conditions. Looking forward, the report said, “the greatest risk of developing or intensifying drought” over the next year is in much of central and South America, southern Africa and western Australia. According to the Global Drought Monitor, global precipitation was “close to average” last year, with no clear trend. But, it added, “the number of record low monthly precipitation totals was the highest on the record”. For more on last year’s record heat, see Carbon Brief’s 2023 state of the climate analysis, published last week.
New year, new species
RIGHT ON KEW: From Antarctic rocks to the top of a volcano, scientists at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, discovered 74 new species of plants and fungi in 2023, BBC News reported. Of these, “at least one will probably already have been lost”, the story said. Scientists are calling for the immediate protection of new discoveries that include species of Antarctic fungi and a pair of trees living almost entirely underground in highland Angola. Nevertheless, senior research leader at Kew, Dr Martin Cheek, told BBC News: “The sheer sense of wonder when you realise that you’ve found a species that is totally unknown to the rest of the world’s scientists and, in fact, everyone else on the planet, in many cases, is what makes life worth living.”
ANIMAL INVENTORY: Separately, the Zoological Survey of India declared that 664 new animal species were discovered in 2022, according to a story by Mid-day profiling the wildlife researchers behind these finds. “It is both hopeful and intriguing to know that there is something new in a particular patch of forest…but it is tough not to be worried by changes,” said University of Arkansas researcher Shantanu Joshi, who discovered a rare dragonfly species and gave a local family credit as co-authors of his research. Citizens and communities aiding these discoveries are “a contrast to the grim reality” of having to witness “radical and swift destruction of habitats” first-hand, the story added. But they face “systemic challenges”, including the lack of funding and opportunities and the state of documentation and inventorying in India, the story said.
DEEP-SEA DISCOVERY: Meanwhile, New Scientist reported that four new species of deep-sea octopus were discovered at depths of 3km near hydrothermal vents off the coast of Costa Rica. “It’s like walking in a forest you’ve never been in before, with a flashlight, trying to find a hot spring,” said expedition co-leader Dr Beth Orcutt from the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences. Separately, the “largest ever study of ocean DNA” revealed fungi species in the ocean’s “twilight zone” that could yield “new drugs that may match the power of penicillin”, the Guardian reported. And a feature in Hakai Magazine looked at how quickly animals can evolve to adapt to a rapidly changing climate. For Prof Luciano Beheregaray, a molecular ecologist at Flinders University, “hybridisation” is key. He told Hakai: “We could manage populations at risk by actively bringing in genetic material that might help them adapt…It would be better than to sit and watch extinction take place before our eyes.”
Spotlight
Deep-sea disquiet
In this spotlight, Carbon Brief unpacks Norway’s recent decision to allow exploratory seabed mining in its national waters and explains what the next year holds for deep-sea mining approvals.
In December, Norway made headlines around the world as its centre-left minority government struck a deal with two conservative parties to allow companies to explore the seabed of the Arctic Ocean for critical minerals, as covered in Cropped at the time. Last week, the Storting – the Norwegian parliament – officially passed the measure, “against massive criticism from scientists, fisheries organisations and the international community”, EU Reporter wrote.
Seabed mining can involve “hoovering” up rocks called “polymetallic nodules” from the seafloor. These rocks contain metals including manganese, cobalt and nickel, many of which are critical for batteries and other technologies. However, it can also look more like land-based mining – which is “more invasive”, according to Wired.
There are a “huge number of unknowns” associated with seabed mining, Prof David Schoeman, a quantitative ecologist at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia, told Carbon Brief last year.
In part, that is because deep-sea habitats are “poorly understood, diverse, fragile and extremely slow to recover from disturbance”, Pepe Clarke, global oceans practice lead at WWF-International, told Carbon Brief. In addition, research previously covered by Carbon Brief has found that seabed mining could negatively impact other important industries, such as fisheries.
At present, the governmental approval covers only exploration for critical minerals, not exploitation of such resources. But, Clarke said: “You don’t explore unless you’re looking for something.”
“Many states view Norway as a sustainable manager of its ocean areas, so what Norway practises and allows in terms of ocean industry is important,” Ida Soltvedt Hvinden of the Fridtjof Nansen Institute told Wired. But it does not directly affect the ongoing negotiations at the International Seabed Authority (ISA), which governs the use of the seafloor in areas beyond any national waters. Twenty-four countries, including the UK, are currently calling for a moratorium on seabed exploration until the risks of environmental harm can be better understood.
There are, essentially, two ways that such a moratorium could come into effect. It could be adopted at the ISA through a formal process. Or, a de facto moratorium could take hold if “a sufficiently large bloc of countries at the ISA committed to withholding support for future mining approvals”, Clarke explained.
Discussions around a seabed exploration moratorium will continue at the ISA this year, with the council scheduled to meet twice and the assembly convening at the end of July. However, Clarke said, it is “unlikely” that the issue will be resolved in the coming year. According to BBC News, a final vote at the ISA is “expected within 24 months”.
News and views
MIXED SIGNALS: Reuters reported that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest halved in 2023 compared to 2022, hitting its lowest levels since 2018. The newswire called it “a major win for President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in his first year in office”. But, it pointed out, the area cleared last year is still “six times the size of New York City” – underscoring challenges in Lula’s pledge to end illegal deforestation by 2030. Meanwhile, the Financial Times reported that deforestation in the Cerrado savannah in eastern Brazil rose by 43% in the same time period, with campaigners calling it a “major stain” on Lula’s environmental credentials. Speaking to the FT, André Guimarães of the Amazon Environmental Research Institute said: “Unlike the Amazon, where prevention can be done via law enforcement, in the Cerrado, incentives have to be created for landowners to give up their right to deforest.”
POLAR PATHOGENS: Alaska state officials confirmed that a polar bear found dead in October was killed by the “highly pathogenic avian influenza that is circulating among animal populations around the world”, the Alaska Beacon reported. The state veterinarian said that the death was the first-ever such report in a polar bear anywhere in the world. The outlet added that the death “is a sign of the unusually persistent and lethal hold that this strain” has on wild animal populations. At the other end of the world, the first bird flu deaths in elephant and fur seals were confirmed on South Georgia Island, a UK territory in the sub-Antarctic. “Hundreds of elephant seals were found dead” on the island, the Guardian reported, adding that there “have also been increased deaths of fur seals, kelp gulls and brown skua at several other sites”.
OVERSATURATED: Important crop-growing areas of England were hit by “widespread flooding”, leading to “concerns about shortages of carrots and other root vegetables”, according to the Times. “Prolonged rain” during Storm Henk earlier this month resulted in sustained flooding. The newspaper wrote that “saturated ground is a problem for growers because as long as the crop is in the ground, there’s greater risk of it rotting”. Prof Hannah Cloke, a hydrologist at the University of Reading, pointed out that the floods compounded issues brought on by a “very wet autumn”. She told the outlet: “October’s Storm Babet is already likely to have caused big impacts on potato and cereal crops and damaged this year’s harvest.”
SEED CHANGE: After two consecutive years of heatwaves and other extreme weather taking a toll on yields from India’s wheat bowl, government surveys showed that 80% of the “wheat area this year has been sown with climate-resilient and bio-fortified varieties,” the Hindustan Times reported. The 2022 heatwave reduced India’s wheat yield by 4.5% “compared to a year with normal weather”, according to a study by the University of British Columbia quoted in the story. Separately, Mongabay reported on the combined impact of air pollution and climate change on India’s food security. And Context News reported that while past election manifestos have made only “passing references” to climate impacts on farmers, “crop-threatening erratic monsoon rains and heatwaves could make headlines as campaigning starts” in India’s big general election in April.
SNOWLESS SLOPES: Gulmarg, a skiing town in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir, witnessed a lack of snow on its ski slopes “due to unseasonably dry weather”, CNN reported, despite being one of the world’s highest ski resorts. The region saw an “80% rain deficit” in December, the Associated Press reported, with daytime temperatures “sometimes at least 6C higher than the norm”. The head of the India Meteorological Department’s Kashmir office, Mukhtar Ahmed, told the newswire that in the last few years, “winter has shortened due to global warming”. This has affected hydropower generation, tourism and agriculture, the article reported, forcing “distressed” farmers to change the crops they plant. Ahmed added that “timely snowfall is crucial to recharge the region’s thousands of glaciers” that sustain agriculture and horticulture. Scientists told the Third Pole that snowless winters and more extreme summer rain could become the norm.
GAZA FAMINE: “Pockets of famine” already exist in Gaza according to UN aid officials, the Guardian reported, with parents sacrificing food for their kids, cooking fuel “almost impossible to find” and 25 kilo sacks of flour now six times their pre-war price. However, lack of data on child malnutrition and mortality meant formal criteria for declaring a famine had not been met, the story said. In a joint statement, the World Health Organisation, World Food Programme and UNICEF said new aid routes must be opened to Gaza, more trucks must be allowed in and aid workers must be protected. According to doctors in Gaza, children “weakened by lack of food had died from hypothermia” and babies born to undernourished mothers “had not survived for more than a few days”.
Watch, read, listen
TRACKED CHANGES: In a news feature, Nature examined how scientists are using gene-editing to domesticate wild plants and concerns around the exploitation of Indigenous and traditional knowledge.
GRISLY NEWS: Are US authorities attributing wildlife declines to predators and overlooking climate impacts on biodiversity? A long-read in Grist unpacked how this has played out in Alaska.
NUTS ABOUT CHESTNUTS: In the Atlantic, staff writer Katherine J Wu explored the downfall of the American chestnut tree and scientists’ attempts to restore the species to its native range.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?: An article in Atmos argued that the way humans talk about nature shapes their relationship to it – and asked whether “we [should] be paying more attention to the words we use?”.
New science
Severe 21st-century ocean acidification in Antarctic marine protected areas
Nature Communications
A new study found that even under intermediate warming over the next century, proposed and existing marine protected areas in the Antarctic will experience “severe” ocean acidification. Using a high-resolution model of the ocean, sea ice and biogeochemistry, researchers projected future ocean acidification under four emissions scenarios. They found that pH in the upper 200 metres of the ocean may decline by up to 0.36, and that these declines will be most severe in coastal areas, where organisms are most sensitive to acidification. The researchers “call for strong emission-mitigation efforts and further management strategies to reduce pressures on ecosystems”.
Consistent patterns of common species across tropical tree communities
Nature
Around 1,050 species make up half of the Earth’s 800bn tropical trees, according to new research. The study, with 357 authors, investigated patterns of abundance of common tree species using inventory data for more than one million trees in old-growth tropical forests across Africa, Amazonia, and south-east Asia. The authors found that despite different histories, there were consistent patterns in common tree species across all continents, suggesting that the “fundamental mechanisms of tree community assembly may apply to all tropical forests”. While their findings “should not detract” from the focus on rare and endemic species, the researchers conclude that it “open[s] new opportunities to understand the world’s most diverse forests”.
Living in harmony with nature is achievable only as a non-ideal vision
Environmental Science & Policy
A new study found that “a dynamic relationship with nature is a constitutional right” for citizens of only four out of 193 countries with constitutions in force: Ecuador, Bolivia, the Philippines and São Tomé and Príncipe. The authors reviewed national constitutions and environmental and biodiversity policies to understand whether they aligned with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework’s vision of “a world living in harmony with nature by 2050”. They argued that while such harmony “has little scope for translation into rational or achievable policy”, it is consistent with legislation that has been increasingly recognising the rights of nature. They concluded by calling on politicians to “shift Earth-centred governance from an aspirational party-political issue to a foundational principle through constitutional reforms with policy implications”.
In the diary
- 16-19 January: 60th Session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change | Istanbul, Turkey
- 23 January: UN Convention on Biological Diversity first meeting of the informal advisory group on benefit-sharing from the use of digital sequence information on genetic resources | Online
- 28 January: Finland presidential election
- 2 February: World wetlands day
Cropped is researched and written by Dr Giuliana Viglione, Aruna Chandrasekhar, Daisy Dunne, Orla Dwyer and Yanine Quiroz. Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org
The post Cropped 17 January 2024: Norway’s deep-sea disquiet; Panama drought; New species discovered appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Cropped 17 January 2024: Norway’s deep-sea disquiet; Panama drought; New species discovered
Andreas Sieber is head of political strategy at 350.0g. Cat Abreu is director of the International Climate Politics Hub.
From the US abduction of Venezuela’s president at the start of this year to the Iran war which rumbles on, disruption is the new normal for global geopolitics, more often than not linked to conflict over supplies of oil and gas.
Events so far in 2026 – driven largely by the desire of the Trump administration to grab control of fossil fuels around the world – show that the climate community’s approach to energy diplomacy will have to evolve if we are to operate effectively and push for climate action in such a volatile landscape.
Today’s climate and energy governance must be able to cope with trade wars, genocide, fascism, spiralling inequality and challenges to multilateralism. The increasingly dominant paradigms of economic competitiveness, energy security and green industrialisation can help drive the transition but they also challenge our collective mission to deliver an equitable green shift.
US-China rivalry dominates
Longer-term geopolitical trends that are seeing power move from West to East and North to South have fuelled a US–China “superpower rivalry”, which is pulling the global economy apart and reining in trade.
A key question will be how the fracture “lines” are drawn: by the US and China, or also by other countries or blocs? Many governments will try to remain “in the middle” between the two giants to capture economic gains from both sides. Yet despite the language of “strategic autonomy”, Washington and Beijing may be in a position to force choices via market access, export controls and sanctions.
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Top maritime court rejects bid to halt UN deep-sea mining inquiry
Two subsidiaries of The Metals Company sought to block the probe into potential contract breaches launched after the firm’s application for US-sponsored permits
At first glance, this may not seem particularly relevant for climate and energy politics. But Huawei’s exclusion from 5G operations across the political West and India following the so-called Clean Network Campaign by the US government serves as a warning of what could happen to climate green tech.
And the recent debate to cut out Chinese inverters from European markets follows the same pattern – US security forces perceive a risk and start encouraging their allies to drop Chinese technology.
The new drivers: competition and security
Despite this fracturing geopolitical and economic context, energy transition is still happening. To ensure it is effective and equitable, we need to understand what is driving it and how to adapt climate politics so that it better responds to these drivers.
Put simply, China is supplying the world with low-cost renewables (roughly 60% of critical wind and 80% of solar components), batteries, EVs and other key elements. Other countries now also want their piece of the green tech pie and are forming industrial policies to get it.
It is this new competitiveness-driven logic that will shape the quest for decarbonisation, which has shifted from cooperating around the cost of tackling climate change to rivalry for the benefits of climate action.
Over 90% of new renewables projects are now cheaper than fossil alternatives. Gas-fired power is 3–4 times more expensive than solar and wind. In 2015, most decarbonisation policies were “traditional” emissions-cutting strategies like carbon pricing or net zero dates, whereas green industrial policies now underpin the majority.
Iran war could boost fossil fuel phase-out push, says Colombian minister
Meanwhile, security has become a central driver of energy politics. We are living through the second major fossil fuel crisis in just four years. Elevated oil and gas prices will impose up to $1 trillion in additional costs on the global economy by the end of the year if disruption continues in the Strait of Hormuz. Fossil fuel supply chains have exposed countries to conflict, coercion and brutal price shocks.
Fossil fuel volatility destabilises whole economies – higher fuel costs drive up food prices, increase political instability, and push millions into poverty and hunger. This incentivises governments to shield themselves from global shocks, especially in countries that are net fossil fuel importers and home to roughly three-quarters of the world’s population.
Yet security fears can cut both ways. The same instability that makes fossil fuel dependence untenable is also sharpening concern over China’s dominance of critical clean technologies and supply chains.
Equity, cooperation and the opportunity for change
Developing countries benefit from the rapid uptake of renewables enabled by low-cost Chinese technologies. But significant fiscal space and public investment is needed for the electricity grids and infrastructure required to fully unleash the energy transition, as well as for green industrialisation to diversify revenue streams.
Despite this, industrial-scale domestic production and ownership often remain out of reach for too many countries that lack the fiscal space to allow green supply chains to flourish and compete with their traditional industrial base. But more just and diversified green tech supply chains could be achieved with concomitant support.
Can giant batteries unlock Africa’s green industrial future?
For the first time in decades, the international order is being substantially reshaped. If within this context, decarbonisation is increasingly driven by green industrial policy, energy security and competitiveness, the climate policy community must better anticipate where these debates are moving. We must speak the same language, and enter the forums where decisions are made, including security, trade and bilateral or trilateral spaces.
We should build on an enlightened self interest recognising that cooperation remains essential and beneficial. This includes using the UN climate process differently: less as an ever-expanding negotiation machine, and more as a space for norm-setting, political alignment and deal-making. In an age of fragmentation, effective cooperation must not only be framed as necessary but thought of as a strategically compelling source of resilience and shared advantage.
The post Energy transition policymaking must evolve to fit an age of rupture appeared first on Climate Home News.
Energy transition policymaking must evolve to fit an age of rupture
Low-income Indian workers, many of them migrants from rural areas hit by climate change, are paying for worsening extreme heat through lost working days and health complications, with the cost equivalent to 2% of national GDP per year, new research shows.
The International Institute of Environment and Development (IIED), a London-based think-tank, worked with local organisations to survey around 540 households of informal workers in three Indian cities: Ajmer, Delhi and Agra. Most had migrated from rural areas to find work in industries such as construction, brick-making, garment manufacturing and food packaging.
The survey found them struggling through long working days with little access to shade, cooling, rest or water, as well as few toilets for women. And even when they go home, many live in makeshift shelters or airless cramped rooms with barely a single fan, bringing almost no respite.
Outdoor workers are losing about 24 days of work a year due to heat, costing them nearly a tenth of their annual earnings, while indoor workers sacrifice roughly 15 days. On top of losing income, they are also bearing the cost of health problems like heat exhaustion, psychological stress and kidney damage brought on by repeated dehydration.
If the survey’s findings are extrapolated to a national level, the IIED researchers estimate that the decline in productivity and effects of kidney disease combined add up to lost wages of $78 billion each year.
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Top maritime court rejects bid to halt UN deep-sea mining inquiry
Two subsidiaries of The Metals Company sought to block the probe into potential contract breaches launched after the firm’s application for US-sponsored permits -
Most “zombie credits” locked out of new UN carbon market after China and India snub
Fears of a flood of environmentally-dubious carbon credits have faded, with most old projects not able to transition to new UN market
Vishram Meena, 45, from Alwar in Rajasthan, has worked on construction sites in Ajmer for more than a decade, toiling for 10 to 12 hours a day carrying materials and mixing cement in the full sun.
In May 2024, on one of the hottest days, he collapsed after feeling dizzy and suffering a nosebleed. His wife and colleagues managed to get him to hospital where he was diagnosed with heat stroke. He has since returned to the same building work because the family needs the money.
“I went back because what else could I do? We are not machines. We are human beings. The heat is killing us slowly,” he was quoted as saying in a report on the survey’s findings.
“Victorian-era” conditions
Ritu Bharadwaj, IIED’s director of climate resilience, finance and loss and damage, described some of the stories from workers about their experiences of extreme heat as “genuinely horrifying”.
Kusum, a tailor at a garment manufacturing and export unit in Kapashera, Delhi, recounted how the machines for ironing finished garments are in the same tiny room where workers are making the clothes, with steam and hot air building up through her shift.
Fans are too far apart to move the air and nothing has changed in over a decade, she said, adding that “in summer, the unit feels like a furnace”.
“These are Victorian-era working conditions and they’re completely unacceptable in the 21st century,” said Bharadwaj. She called for stepped-up social protection from the government to pay people for days they are unable work due to heat, as well as micro-insurance schemes with payouts triggered by temperature measurements.
This money would help families buy food and pay medical bills when their income dips if they fall ill or cannot work their usual hours due to soaring temperatures.
Climate change-driven heatwaves hit Delhi’s Red Fort market traders
The aim of the IIED study, Bharadwaj added, is to get policy-makers’ attention by showing the scale of damage extreme heat is doing to India’s GDP in an economy whose growth relies on service-led industries. “If the workers within them start falling sick, you know it’s the economic growth which is going to get impacted,” she told a webinar to present the research.
“Whether [policymakers] care about the workers or not, at least they would care about the GDP, and therefore then invest in their care,” she explained.
Labour code leaves out heat
However, Bharadwaj noted that a 2026 reform to India’s labour law bringing a range of regulations together in one code does not include heat-related protections for workers and only applies to businesses above a certain size. She urged the government to introduce a temperature threshold above which all workers would be able to stop their activities.
IIED and its partners have also carried out a similar study in Bangladesh which will be published later this month, showing that extreme heat is costing its workforce the equivalent of nearly 1.4% of GDP.
Shakirul Islam, chairperson of the Ovibashi Karmi Unnayan Program (OKUP) in Bangladesh, said the government had introduced stricter safety policies for garment-making companies after the Rana Plaza complex collapsed in 2013. But, he said, these rules are rarely followed by manufacturers, especially at the level of smaller subcontractors.
The workers’ welfare centres that do exist are open mainly during work hours so they are difficult to visit. Some companies also make saline water available for heat stress, which is no good for those with high blood pressure, he noted.
For Indian women workers, a just transition means surviving climate impacts with dignity
Archana Shukla Mukherjee, CEO of India’s Change Alliance, which also partnered with IIED on the survey, said it was time to hold both the government and businesses accountable for finding solutions to the intensifying problem of extreme heat’s effects on workers.
She said that employee state insurance schemes should identify heat stroke as an occupational disease while companies along the whole supply chain should start putting in place heat protection measures, including for informal workers and migrants.
If the tools and mechanisms available to help workers do not reach the most vulnerable and marginalised people, “then I think we are not doing something right,” she said.
The post Extreme heat costing India’s poorest workers 2% of GDP, survey finds appeared first on Climate Home News.
Extreme heat costing India’s poorest workers 2% of GDP, survey finds
A United Nations investigation into deep-sea mining firms will continue after the world’s top maritime court rejected their bid to suspend the inquiry triggered by a US-backed push to extract critical minerals from the ocean floor.
In two orders issued on Saturday, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) declined to halt an inquiry launched by the International Seabed Authority (ISA) into whether permit holders, including Tonga Offshore Mining Ltd (TOML) and Nauru Ocean Resources Inc (NORI), have breached their obligations under UN exploration contracts.
The two companies are subsidiaries of Canadian firm The Metals Company (TMC), which earlier this year sought permits from the United States to commercially mine the deep seabed in an area already covered by its UN exploration licences, bypassing the ISA’s regulatory process.
The inquiry was opened after TMC’s move raised questions over whether its subsidiaries had complied with their contractual obligations to the ISA, which regulates mining in international waters under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. TOML and NORI sued the ISA last June for allegedly targeting them “in breach of due process” and without “good faith”.
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UN seabed regulator defends authority as mining firms seek to halt inquiry
Campaigners accused deep-sea mining frontrunner The Metals Company of obstructing an inquiry into its subsidiaries. The firm says it is being targeted without procedural basis -
Flood deaths in West African cities raise fraught issue of slum evictions
Deadly floods expose poor urban planning, over-population and spread of informal settlements on disaster-prone land – a problem authorities are struggling to manage -
Most “zombie credits” locked out of new UN carbon market after China and India snub
Fears of a flood of environmentally-dubious carbon credits have faded, with most old projects not able to transition to new UN market
While allowing the inquiry to proceed, the court ordered the ISA to ensure the companies receive due process. Judges said the regulator must explain the factual and legal basis of its inquiry, clarify the procedures being followed and provide TOML and NORI with a meaningful opportunity to respond.
The companies seeks to mine an area called the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, which holds vast reserves of critical minerals like nickel, manganese and rare earths but is also home to a little-studied deep ocean ecosystem with thousands of unnamed species.
In response to the court’s ruling, the ISA welcomed the decision, saying the inquiry “remains in effect” and would continue “with due regard to all applicable legal requirements”.
Last week, during an annual meeting of its member governments, ISA secretary-general Leticia Carvalho said the resources in the ocean floor are “the common heritage of humankind” and upheld the agency’s role as “more important than ever”.
TMC also welcomed the court decision in a statement and claimed that judges ruled to “protect the rights of TMC subsidiaries”.
“Contractors like NORI and TOML, who have together spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the promise of a fair regulatory framework, should be informed of the factual and legal basis of any non-compliance inquiries, understand the procedure being applied, and receive a meaningful opportunity to respond,” said Gerard Barron, CEO of The Metals Company.
Environmental groups said the ruling allows scrutiny of the companies’ actions to continue.
Louisa Casson, deep-sea mining campaigner with Greenpeace, said the “entire litigation has been an egregious waste of time and money”, which was part of the industry’s “textbook distraction tactic” meant to delay the consequences of the inquiry.
“If the inquiry confirms that TMC’s subsidiaries are breaching their contracts, governments must send the strongest possible signal that complicity in unlawful deep sea mining will not be tolerated,” she said.
While investigation is still ongoing, NORI’s contract is set to expire this week and is up for review. Governments asked the ISA to report back and make “make appropriate recommendations” by the next ISA assembly, its main decision-making body set to take place next week from July 27 to 31.
The court ordered both the ISA and TMC to submit a report on how they complied with the ruling by August 31, and called on both to “cooperate and refrain from any action that might lead to
aggravating the dispute”.
The post Top maritime court rejects bid to halt UN deep-sea mining inquiry appeared first on Climate Home News.
Top maritime court rejects bid to halt UN deep-sea mining inquiry
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