Environmental Activists Sue Norway Over Its Deep-Sea Mining Plans

May 27, 2024

Norway recently agreed to a controversial plan to look for minerals on the ocean floor over an area bigger than Britain. This choice was made by Norway’s parliament in January after a study paid for by the government found that such research would have little effect on the environment. Environmentalists have taken this to court, saying that the effect assessments were not thorough enough. They have taken their complaints to court in Oslo, saying that the project could have bad effects on the environment.

What is Deep-Sea Mining?

Deep-sea mining is the process of getting minerals from the bottom of the ocean. There are three main types of mining: getting polymetallic nodules out of the ground, mining huge sulphide reserves on the seafloor, and taking cobalt crusts off of rocks deep underground. These minerals are very important for making many tech parts that are used in everyday things like cellphones and batteries for green energy sources. Deep-sea mining is good for the economy, but it causes big problems for the environment. The noise, vibrations, light pollution, and sediment plumes that come from it could mess up marine environments and hurt or bother marine life like corals and sponges.

The Rise of Climate Litigation

Litigation over climate change has become an important way to hold governments and businesses responsible for what they do or don’t do to stop climate change. The idea includes using the law to make people follow environmental rules and promises they make, like those in the Paris Agreement and other international agreements. From 884 cases in 2017 to over 2,180 by the end of 2022, the number of climate-related cases has gone up greatly around the world. Children, women, local communities, and Indigenous Peoples are just a few of the groups that are often involved in these cases.

Notable Cases and Outcomes

One important example of a winning climate lawsuit is the April decision by Europe’s top human rights court, which sided with a group of elderly Swiss women who were suing their government for not doing enough to stop climate change. A judge in Montana, USA, said in August 2023 that the state government’s approval of fossil fuel projects without thinking about how they would affect climate change violated the constitutional right to a healthy environment. This was another important case. Even though not all cases end the way people want them to, like when a young girl from Uttarakhand, India, had her claim thrown out in 2017, the trend of climate litigation shows that people around the world are putting more and more faith in legal solutions to deal with climate change problems.

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