NICE: At the opening of a worldwide summit on the seas in France on Monday, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres stated that the world should not allow the deepest oceans to “become the wild west.”
As states battle over controversial regulations on mining the seabed for vital minerals and the conditions of a worldwide pact on plastic waste, world leaders gather in Nice for the UN Ocean Conference.
US President Donald Trump has accelerated US exploration in foreign waters and circumvented international attempts to control the emerging industry, adding urgency to the deep-sea mining debate.
The topic will be discussed during the July meeting of the International Seabed Authority, which has control over the ocean floor outside of national waters.