Norway: Siltanews – News Desk
For a country that values environmental support, Norway can also be accused of paying lip service to the concept whilst actually profiting from oil exploration and now deep-sea mining.
Norway has indicated that it intends to allow deep-sea mining in the Arctic Ocean. Nearly a year ago, in January 2024, Norway’s parliament approved the concept of deep-sea mining and confirmed that it intended to start issuing exploration licenses in 2025.
As soon as this was announced, a whole host of organizations including environmentalists, scientists, Greenpeace, WWF (The Worldwide Fund for Nature), the fishing industry and the European Union expressed their fear of causing serious damage to the Arctic Ocean.
Even a Norwegian Government body agrees in principle with WWF reasons for taking Norway to court
The WWF has taken the decision to sue Norway’s government on the grounds that the impact assessment lawmakers used for their decision didn’t have sufficient information to evaluate the consequences of mining for the marine environment.
In an unusual turn of events, the Norwegian Environment Agency, itself a government body, has expressed a similar view. The area under review for mining covers 280,000 square kilometres and it appears that there is little environmental data available for almost the entire expanse.
What is anticipated is the there will be opportunities once deep-sea mining commences to discover a number of important metals such as copper, cobalt, zinc and rare earths which are important for the creation of the much needed green energy transition.
Above the area in which the mining is likely to take place, the ocean is stocked with fish crustacea and mammals all of which are important to the environment and all of which could be adversely affected by the noise of drilling let alone other problems that could arise as according to WWF, so little research exists.
Companies likely to bid for licenses have indicated that they would include marine biologists as they start the mining, but this could well be too little, too late.
Much depends on the outcome of the WWF suit against the Norwegian Government which may see a compromise whereby the issuing of licenses is postponed until more research is undertaken.