The UN must regulate Trump's uncontrolled race to the seabed
The United Nations body that governs deep-sea mining should adopt regulations authorizing the harvesting of metals from the depths, insists this editorial in the British liberal weekly “The Economist”.
About 5,000 meters deep beneath the Pacific Ocean lies a treasure trove: 270 million tons of nickel and 44 million tons of cobalt. These metals have accumulated there little by little over millions of years, forming metallic concretions called “nodules.”
These large pebbles lie in a 4.5 million square kilometer area known as the Clarion-Clipperton Area (CCA), located 800 kilometers southeast of Hawaii, and can be harvested using a robot that functions as both a combine harvester and a vacuum cleaner.
These metals could play a vital role in the energy transition away from fossil fuels: they provide the resources needed to achieve this over the long term, while offering an alternative to terrestrial cobalt and nickel mining, which has disastrous human and environmental consequences.
In 1994, the International Seabed Authority (ISA) was established under the auspices of the UN to oversee the management of deep seabeds in international waters “for the benefit of humankind.” Its regulations serve as a benchmark for other unexplored territories, such as the Moon. The ISA
The Economist (London)A major British press institution, The Economist, founded in 1843 by a Scottish hatter, is the bible for anyone interested in international news. Openly liberal, it generally advocates free trade, globalization, immigration, and cultural liberalism. It is printed in six countries, and 85% of its sales are outside the UK.
None of the articles are signed: a long-standing tradition that the weekly supports with the idea that “personality and collective voice matter more than the individual identity of journalists.”
On The Economist website, in addition to the newspaper's main articles, you'll find excellent thematic and geographical reports produced by The Economist Intelligence Unit, as well as multimedia content, blogs , and a calendar of conferences organized by the newspaper around the world. As a bonus: regular updates of the main stock market prices.
The magazine's coverage may vary between editions (UK, Europe, North America, Asia), but the content is the same; in the UK, however, a few additional pages cover national news. The Economist is 43.4% owned by the Italian Agnelli family, with the remaining stake being shared among prominent British families (Cadbury, Rothschild, Schroders, etc.) and members of the editorial staff.
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