Challenges in Regulating Deep-Sea Mining and Protecting Earth’s Oceans

Mining in the deep seas and climate change effects have negative impacts on Earth’s capacity to capture and store carbon. As stewards of the land and water, Indigenous communities want the United Nations (UN) to ban deep-sea mining worldwide and to recognize Indigenous sovereignty of the oceans. Mining companies continue to conduct their own environmental impact studies, and argue that extracting base metals found in polymetallic nodules, some millions of years old, from the deep sea, will save the planet, facilitate a greener economy, and address climate change. Discussions about the so-called “green rush” to the extract minerals from the bottom of the ocean, meeting decarbonization goals, protecting deep-sea ecosystems, and recognizing Indigenous sovereignty, are inextricably intertwined.

A recent scientific study by Norway and the United Kingdom, surveying 17 sites along the Barents Sea Floor, found that deep-sea creatures stored much more carbon than had been speculated before. Deep-sea mining and trawling not only destroy animal habitats, carbon, and sea creatures from the deep seabed, they also destroy animal habitats and jellyfish populations, from the middle sections of the ocean (i.e., midwater) thereby reducing the overall capacity of the oceans as carbon sinks and the number of organisms in “tens to hundreds of kilometres throughout the water column.”

The application of “terra nullius” (i.e., nobody’s land) to the oceans (i.e., leading to the idea of ‘aqua nullius’) demands recognition of Indigenous sovereignty over the oceans, including during the UN’s discussions about regulating deep-sea mining. In the year since the UN Global Oceans Treaty was signed in July 2022, there remain no finalized regulations governing the deep sea, including the depth at which sediment from the deep sea can be released in the mining process.

The UN-affiliated International Seabed Authority (ISA), responsible for developing regulations for deep-sea mining, met in Jamaica in July 2023 to discuss finalizing these regulations. Indigenous activists presented the ISA with a petition containing 1000 signatures representing 34 countries and 56 Indigenous groups calling for a total ban on the practice of deep-sea mining, noting how deep-sea mining and exploring happen without the consent of Indigenous peoples and threaten the Earth’s ecosystems. By the end of the ISA’s meeting, a final agreement was not reached; however, a timeline was set to have the regulations finalized “by July 2025, although this timeline is not legally binding.”

The Government of Canada remains cautious, supporting “an interim moratorium on deep sea mining, essentially signalling it would not agree to mining regulations until it had seen more science on how to do it with the least impact on the environment.” Collective knowledge about the deep sea remains murky at best, and the fight to implement and practice fair and informed consent of Indigenous Peoples persists, while companies line up to extract and profit from deep-sea minerals. As such, will environmental controls and laws on deep-sea mining be enough to protect the Earth and Indigenous sovereignty in the rush to a greener economy?

 

By Leela Viswanathan

 

(Image Credit: Naja Bertolt Jensen, Unsplash)

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Locally Led Adaptation Principles and Projects

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Locally Led Adaptation (LLA) refers to community-led initiatives that are intended to guide people toward climate adaptation practices that are owned locally by community members and other partners.

According to the Global Commission on Adaptation, there are eight principles to guide locally led adaptation:

  1. “Devolving decision making to the lowest appropriate level” to facilitate direct engagement in determining the trajectory of local adaptation efforts.
  2. “Addressing structural inequalities faced by women, youth, children, Indigenous peoples and all those who are marginalized by society.”
  3. “Providing patient and predictable funding that can be accessed more easily,” so that locally-led initiatives and governance structures are sustainable over time.
  4. “Investing in local capabilities to leave an institutional legacy” and ensure long-lasting solutions rather than focusing solely on project-based funding and outcomes.
  5. “Building a robust understanding of climate risk and uncertainty” to inform decision making about local adaptation through different knowledge sources and experiences, including scientific data and Indigenous Traditional Knowledges.
  6. “Flexible programming and learning” that work with uncertainty and unpredictability exacerbated by climate change.
  7. “Ensuring transparency and accountability” among all participants.
  8. “Collaborative action and investment…across sectors, initiatives, and levels.”

A form of project-based funds for local, small-scale, Indigenous-led climate adaptation initiatives located in First Nation communities south of the 60th parallel, is Canada’s First Nation Adapt (FNA) program. However, to ensure the long-term effectiveness of locally led adaptation efforts and associated governance structures, communities need sustainable and predictable financing.

 

By Leela Viswanathan

 

(Image Credit: Steve Adams, Unsplash)

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A Framework for Equitable Climate Change Adaptation for Municipalities

Municipal governments play a crucial role in land use planning and management in climate change, as noted in the Milestone document of Canada’s 2023 National Biodiversity Strategy, which, as a draft document, is currently open for public comment until February 9, 2024. To facilitate “[e]nsuring a whole-of-government approach to create policy coherence across environmental, economic, and social mandates”, as called for in the Milestone document, it is worth asking how can municipal governments facilitate equitable approaches to climate change adaptation?

Both the USDN Guide to Equitable Community-Driven Climate Preparedness and the ICLEI Equitable Climate Change Adaptation Report (that draws from the USDN Guide) offer a framework for local and municipal governments to develop equitable and inclusive climate change adaptation strategies. Both documents encourage a systems-based approach to identifying historical inequities in community planning and how the impacts of climate change across communities are assessed, knowing that “climate change vulnerability[ies] are not evenly spread.”

Equitable climate change adaptation involves municipalities and partners fostering equitable and inclusive participation leading to community-driven approaches to climate change adaptation. Drawing from the USDN guide, the ICLEI report elaborates on three equity objectives for local governments engaging in inclusive climate change adaptation strategies; these are procedural, distributional, and structural. Procedural objectives address the fair transparent inclusive processes and treatment of people, and highlights engaging participants from “communities disproportionately impacted by climate change.” Distributional objectives address an equitable distribution of resources and of the benefits and burdens associated with projects. Resources should also prioritize communities that experience “the greatest impacts, inequities, and unmet needs.” Structural objectives “commit to correct past harms and prevent unintended consequences” as well as address the inequities undergirding structural and institutional systems.

The ICLEI report offers a step-by-step approach to making the case for municipal governments to center equity in climate change adaptation and offers examples for climate change impacts on equity issues including, housing and homelessness, energy security, food security, and green infrastructure and public space. The report also highlights three associated project types, offering examples of adaptation infrastructure projects, adaptation plans and policies, and programming for climate adaptation, including the Project Watershed: Kus-kus-sum involving a partnership with K’ómoks First Nation and the City of Courtney in British Columbia, and related subsequent restoration plans.

Over 61 cities from around the world – including 23 Canadian cities – signed the Montreal Pledge (since it was proposed at COP15 in 2022) to undertake tangible actions to protect biodiversity. Several cities, including Montreal, Vancouver, and Quebec City also endorsed the Edinburgh Declaration, which recognizes “the contributions by subnational governments (including cities and local authorities) to the achievement of global diversity goals and targets” as laid out in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF).

Knowing that municipal leaders play a key role in determining how to “halt and reverse” the loss of biodiversity in cities, it is vital for cities to consider how to move from their intentions for equity in climate change adaptation, to achieving measurable outcomes.

 

By Leela Viswanathan

 

(Image Credit: Rich Martello, Unsplash)

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Meeting Emission Reduction Targets: The CCPI 2024

Many countries are not on track to meet their committed targets to keep the global temperature rise to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2030, as per the Paris Agreement. The Climate Change Performance Index 2024 (CCPI 2024) supplies data that ranks how sixty-three countries and the European Union – countries that “together account for over 90% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions –  are faring in their efforts to develop and implement mitigation solutions to climate change.”

The CCPI 2024 covers fourteen indicators of  “climate protection performance” in four categories:

  • Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
  • Renewable energy
  • Energy use
  • Climate policy

Austria, Denmark, and New Zealand have set 100% renewable electricity targets by 2030. Estonia recently joined these countries in setting a new target of 100% after reaching their first target of 40% in 2022. These countries place high in the CCPI 2024 rankings overall.

Canada’s 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan targets a reduction in “emissions across the entire economy to reach [Canada’s] emissions reduction target of 40 to 45 percent below 2005 levels by 2030” to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. According to the CCPI 2024, Canada is rated low across the board, on climate policy, GHG emissions, renewable energy, and energy use, placing 62nd out of sixty-seven countries.

Given that “more than half of the CCPI ranking indicators are qualified in relative terms (better/worse) rather than absolute,” even the highest-ranking countries, must follow through on their commitments to protect against global temperature rise.

 

By Leela Viswanathan

(Image Credit: Andreas Gucklhorn, Unsplash)

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