COBRA Webinar – February 2026

A political economy analysis of deep-sea mining

Dr. Kate Neville (University of Toronto)

Plans to develop commercial mining operations in international deep seabed regions are hotly contested, and the future of these activities is uncertain. There are currently exploration activities underway, governed by the International Seabed Authority (ISA), an international organization under the Convention of the Law of the Sea. Negotiations are ongoing under the ISA over a mining code for exploitation and there have also been unilateral claims of authority over the seabed that have increased international attention to these unfolding dynamics.

Three distinct justifications for deep-sea mining have been advanced by different mining proponents: 1) scarcity — that terrestrial metal and mineral deposits are insufficient for the material demand of the future, and that these materials are needed for national security and for renewable energy transitions; 2) social benefits — that deep-sea mining will substitute for terrestrial mining and so avoid deforestation, environmental damage, and community displacement on land, and 3) economic benefits —  that deep-sea mining will advance economic development, and especially that it will benefit countries of the global South through revenue-sharing.

In this project, we ask a central question: is there evidence to support these justifications? We develop three lines of analysis. First, we consider whether the target metals and minerals of deep-sea mining scarce and—if so—whether the expansion of mining into the deep-sea would resolve the causes of scarcity. Second, we assess whether evidence substantiates the claim that new frontiers of extraction and expanded supplies are likely to substitute for existing mining projects, so whether this is indeed a question of trade-offs between land and sea. And third, we examine the claims that economic benefits will arise from expanding the supply of metals and minerals, and especially how the benefits and burdens of development will be distributed.

Our political economy analysis raises doubts about all three justifications, and especially about their interactions. These claims hinge on misrepresentations of the current state of the mining industry, including the factors that shape mineral supply chains and access, how new sources and sites of extraction affect the industry, and how financial flows and investments are structured in global commodity sectors. Based on these findings, we argue that government investments in deep-sea mining are an expensive distraction from effective, long-term policy planning to address climate change, and to promote metals recycling and ecologically oriented circular economy initiatives to reduce the demand for deep seabed resources.

This talk is based on a co-authored article by Alger et al. published in 2025 in npj Ocean Sustainability.