Norway greenlights deep-sea mining exploration

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00:00 It's Western Europe's largest oil and gas producer and now Norway is poised to become

00:06 one of the first countries to explore its ocean floor.

00:10 On Tuesday, Parliament approved gradually opening up a 280,000 square kilometer area

00:16 in the Arctic for mining exploration.

00:20 It is kind of a major state back to have Norway, which is usually a champion country towards

00:25 oceans to go and want to open deep sea mining in the Arctic.

00:30 Last year, Norway's offshore directorate published a report which concluded that substantial

00:35 resources are in place on the seabed, including minerals such as copper and zinc.

00:40 The government argued these were needed for its green transition and has so far ignored

00:45 calls for more research into the impact of deep sea mining.

00:49 Norway seems to have this idea that deep sea mining will become the solution for the green

00:56 transition, which is a really odd idea.

01:01 I mean, what we see internationally is more and more countries are moving away from deep

01:07 sea mining.

01:08 The EU does not want minerals from the seabed, nor does the business community.

01:12 So this is something that Norway stands for alone.

01:17 Norway says environmental considerations will be taken into account during all stages of

01:21 the deep sea mining process.

01:24 For now, there is no timeline set for when the exploration of its seabed will begin.

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