Norway’s Parliament Votes Yes on Deep-Sea Mining in Norwegian Sea

Norway’s parliament voted Tuesday for a bill to allow deep-sea mining in the Arctic waters of the Norwegian Sea. The government has said it plans to move forward with mining of the seabed for minerals sustainably, requiring environmental studies before approving licenses. However, environmentalists have said this practice cannot be done without harming marine life.

The bill could allow deep-sea mining in about 280,000 square kilometers (108,000 square miles) of Norwegian waters, the BBC reported. Companies would then apply for leases to mine the seabed within this area, and applications will require environmental assessments. The Arctic seabed contains minerals like lithium and cobalt, which are currently in demand for use in green technology, such as batteries.

According to Reuters, Norway wants seabed mining to reach commercial scale, which would make it the first country to do so. But environmentalists around the world have been calling for an end to deep-sea mining because of its impacts on the marine environment.

The bill that Norway’s parliament voted to approve only concerns Norway’s national waters and was reduced from an original proposal to allow mining in a 329,000-square-kilometer (127,000-square-mile) area, Mongabay reported.

The country has moved to allow seabed mining in order for a “green transition,” Minister of Petroleum and Energy Terje Aasland said in a statement in June 2023. 

“We need to cut 55% of our emissions by 2030, and we also need to cut the rest of our emissions after 2030,” Astrid Bergmål, the state secretary for the energy minister, told Mongabay. “So, the reason for us to look into seabed minerals is the large amount of critical minerals that will be needed for many years.”

But scientists and environmentalists have long raised concerns over these mining practices. The Deep Sea Conservation Coalition explained that seabed mining destroys the seabed, including sponge, coral and hydrothermal vent ecosystems. This type of mining also creates plumes in the water that can have wide-reaching consequences, potentially smothering some species up to hundreds of kilometers away from the mining site. The plumes could pollute the marine environment, the coalition reported. Further, deep-sea mining can create noise pollution that negatively impacts whale species.

In November 2023, 120 members of the European parliament wrote a letter to the Norwegian parliament, asking it to reject the plans to open the country’s waters for deep-sea mining.

“The green transition cannot be used as a justification for harming biodiversity and the world’s largest natural carbon sink, especially since alternatives exist,” the authors wrote. “The demand for minerals can be reduced by 58% through innovation in renewable technology and circular economy measures. Instead of plunging into high-risk deep-sea activities before having full understanding of their consequences, we must reduce our dependence on these materials.”

Deep-sea mining could expand globally in the near future as well. The International Seabed Authority (ISA) is expected to determine whether seabed mining will be allowed in international waters by 2025, and if so, how that will work, the World Resources Institute reported. The organization has already approved some exploration permits, but has not yet approved any mining projects.