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This remains a five-alarm fire. We have just days left in our Fall Campaign and the numbers we’re seeing are not good. This is terrifying for us, especially when everything we cherish is on the ballot just one week from now.
"Norway's plans not only directly threaten species and habitats on the seabed, but also the wider marine ecosystem, from the tiniest plankton to the great whales," one Greenpeace scientist said.
Norway's plans to move forward with deep-sea mining could do irreparable damage to unique Arctic ecosystems and even drive unobserved species to extinction.
That's the warning issued Friday in a Greenpeace report titled Deep Sea Mining in the Arctic: Living Treasures at Risk. The environmental group argues that Norway's mining plans contradict its previous ecological commitments, such as its 2020 pledge to manage 100% of its ocean area sustainably by 2025.
"The measure of a nation's success is not how many promises it makes, but how it honors them and how much of its ecosystem is safeguarded for present and future generations," Greenpeace Nordic campaigner Haldis Tjeldflaat Helle said in a statement. "While Norway claims to be a respectable nation with responsible policies on ocean management, it's rolling out the red carpet for deep-sea mining companies to deploy machines that will cause irreversible harm to the Arctic's unique and vulnerable biodiversity. Somehow Norway's words and ocean commitments get forgotten when profit opportunities arise. We cannot let that happen."
"Mining will cause permanent damage to those ecosystems and it will remain impossible to assess the full extent of those impacts, let alone control them."
Norway's parliament sparked global outrage when it voted to explore its Arctic seabed for minerals in January 2024. Its Ministry of Energy then released a plan for the first round of licenses in June. The country aims to extend its first licenses next year and see mining begin by 2030.
Now, the Greenpeace report details what would be at stake if it does so.
"The Arctic is a unique and vital marine environment, home to one of the world's most fragile and diverse ecosystems, crucial for global climate regulation and supporting a wide array of species found nowhere else on Earth," Greenpeace International executive director Mads Christensen wrote in the report foreword. "The recent decision by Norway to open up 281,200 square kilometers of its claim to an extended continental shelf to deep-sea mining is putting ocean life and the livelihoods of those who depend on it at grave risk."
The mining would threaten life at all levels of the ocean and all nodes in the marine food web. Norway is hoping to mine for metals in the manganese crusts around hydrothermal vents, but these vents have also enabled a diverse array of life.
"They are home to creatures such as stalked jellyfish, tube worm forests, fish that produce antifreeze, and hairy shrimps hosting colonies of bacteria that can convert toxic hydrogen sulphides and methane into energy," Christensen wrote. "These are unique habitats with endemic species that can be found nowhere else on Earth, including ones that have yet to be scientifically described."
Deep-sea species like sponges, stony corals, sea pens, sea fans, lace corals, and black corals are also particularly vulnerable because they grow slowly, mature late, reproduce infrequently, and live for a long time. The habitats they form are therefore classified as Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems. Mining would disturb these ecosystems directly as "underwater robots" would both damage and remove them in the hunt for metals.
However, the impacts of deep-sea mining extend beyond the seabed and included sediment plumes, the release of toxins, the alternation of the substrate and its geochemistry, noise and light pollution, and moving some organisms from one part of the sea to another. These could harm both marine and human communities, as unique conditions in the Arctic Ocean create a spring phytoplankton bloom that feeds important fisheries like herring, mackerel, and blue whiting. The area also draws migrating seabirds and several species of marine mammals.
In particular, 12 species of marine mammals are commonly found in the area slated for mining: minke whale, humpback whale, fin whale, blue whale, bowhead whale, northern bottlenose whale, sperm whale, orca, narwhal, white-beaked dolphin, harp seal, and hooded seal.
"Although it has long been documented that whales and dolphins live in this area, we still know remarkably little about their abundance, distribution, and behaviors, including how much they rely on healthy ecosystems around seamounts," Kirsten Young, a science lead at Greenpeace Research Laboratories at the University of Exeter, said in a statement. "Mining will cause permanent damage to those ecosystems and it will remain impossible to assess the full extent of those impacts, let alone control them."
"What is clear is that Norway's plans not only directly threaten species and habitats on the seabed, but also the wider marine ecosystem, from the tiniest plankton to the great whales," Young concluded.
Norway's plans also come as the region is already undergoing changes due to the burning of fossil fuels and the heating of the atmosphere and oceans.
A 2023 assessment of the ecosystems of the Norwegian Sea found that both water temperatures and ocean acidification had increased.
Acidification in particular is of "grave concern" in the sea because it is moving more quickly than the global average.
"As the waters of the Nordic Seas become more acidified, there will be impacts to species, ecosystems, and ecosystem functioning as a result of changes to organisms' structure, distribution, and ability to function," Greenpeace wrote.
Greenpeace is calling on Norway to abandon its plans for deep-sea mining and add its name to a list of countries backing a moratorium on the practice.
In addition, the group urges Norway to instead facilitate more scientific research in its Arctic waters and to protect a network of 30% of them by 2030 in keeping with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and work with other nations to preserve all marine environments under the global ocean treaty.
"Now, when six of the nine planetary boundaries have been exceeded, is not the time to be opening up a new frontier to extraction, but one when we should all be doubling down on doing what is needed to safeguard the wildlife and ecosystems that we share this wonderful blue planet with," Christensen said.
Last month, 94% of new vehicles sold in the oil-producing nation were electric.
In what's believed to be a global milestone, electric vehicles now outnumber gasoline-fueled automobiles on Norway's roads, as the overwhelming bulk of new cars sold in recent months have been battery-powered.
Norway's Road Information Council (OFV) said Tuesday that electric vehicles (EVs) made up 754,303, or 26.6%, of the 2.8 million passenger automobiles registered in the Nordic nation. That's slightly more than the 753,905 registered gasoline-powered vehicles, but far fewer than the 999,715 diesel-burning ones.
Last month, a record 94.3% of all new vehicles sold in Norway were EVs, with Tesla's Model Y as the top seller.
"This is historic. A milestone few saw coming 10 years ago," said OFV director Øyvind Solberg Thorsen. "The electrification of the passenger car fleet is keeping a high pace, and Norway is making rapid strides towards becoming the first country in the world with a passenger car fleet dominated by electric cars."
"But it will take some time before we get there, because there are still 1 million registered passenger cars with diesel engines in the country," Thorsen noted. "The pace we are seeing in the replacement of the passenger car fleet now may indicate that in 2026 we will also have more electric cars than diesel cars."
According to OFV, there could be as many as 3.1 million EVs registered in Norway by the end of the decade.
"The rate of change in the passenger car units is difficult to predict," Thorsen cautioned. "Economic fluctuations in relation to car taxes, prices, interest rates, and other factors affect new car sales—both for private individuals and companies. And tax changes have a big impact on which cars we choose."
Norway—which is ironically Europe's second-largest oil producer—incentivizes EV purchases with generous tax rebates.
In stark contrast with Norway, electric car sales have been lagging in most of the rest of Europe, where EVs make up just 12.3% of new cars sold, according toThe Guardian.
Experts say that in order for countries to fulfill their obligations under the Paris climate agreement, zero-emission vehicles—which include EVs and hydrogen-powered automobiles—must account for around 40% of the global car and light truck fleet by 2030.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change and MIT Energy Initiative forecast in 2021 that the global EV fleet will grow from just over 10 million to 95-105 million by 2030, and 585-823 million by 2050.
The world's largest pension fund recently adopted new ethics rules that could preclude it from owning shares in several U.S. arms firms.
Norway's $1.76 trillion sovereign wealth fund—the world's largest—could soon be forced to divest from companies including linchpins of the U.S. military-industrial complex due to updated ethics standards for businesses complicit in Israeli human rights violations in occupied Palestine.
Reutersreported Wednesday that the Government Pension Fund Global Council of Ethics informed the Norwegian Ministry of Finance on August 30 that it "believes the ethical guidelines provide a basis for excluding a few more companies" to its divestment list, "in addition to those already excluded."
The ethics council has been investigating whether to blacklist more companies ever since Israel began its bombardment, siege, and invasion of Gaza 334 days ago in response to the Hamas-led October 7 attack.
Since then, Israeli forces have killed or maimed more than 145,000 Palestinians, while forcibly displacing, starving, and sickening millions more and obliterating the Gaza Strip. Israel is currently
on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague.
Also under the council's consideration is Israel's conduct in the illegally occupied West Bank, where occupation forces have killed hundreds more Palestinians and settlers have carried out deadly pogroms under the protection—and sometimes with the participation—of Israel Defense Forces troops.
The fund's ethics rules—which are made by Norway's parliament, the Storting—were updated partly due to the ICJ's July advisory opinion that Israel's 57-year occupation is an illegal form of apartheid that must immediately end.
Companies under consideration include U.S.-based RTX (formerly Raytheon), General Electric, and General Dynamics.
Under its previous policy, the fund divested from nine companies operating in the occupied West Bank. Targeted businesses build homes and roads in illegal Israeli settler colonies, as well as provide surveillance systems for the Israeli separation wall, often called the "apartheid wall," along the Green Line boundary and inside parts of the West Bank.
In June, another Norwegian pension fund, Kommunal Landspensjonskasse (KLP), divested its nearly $70 million stake in Texas-based Caterpillar, citing the use of its bulldozers in ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.
"For a long time, Caterpillar has supplied bulldozers and other equipment that has been used to demolish Palestinian homes and infrastructure to clear the way for Israeli settlements," KLP head of responsible investments Kiran Aziz said at the time. "It has also been alleged that the company's equipment is being used by the Israeli Defence Forces in connection with its military campaign in Gaza."
Norway is one of several nations including Spain, Ireland, Slovenia, and
Armenia that have recently joined the nearly 150 countries that have formally recognized Palestinian statehood.
"In the midst of a war, with tens of thousands killed and injured, we must keep alive the only alternative that offers a political solution for Israelis and Palestinians alike: Two states, living side by side, in peace and security," Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said in late May.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz threatened "severe consequences" for Norway, Spain, and Ireland after they announced they would recognize Palestine.
In a move that the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
called an "alarming precedent," Israel last month revoked the accreditation and visas of eight Norwegian diplomats over the Nordic nation's support for Palestine.