Pacific Islands Forum on Deep-sea Mining & more – 14th Nov 2023

Ahoy from Tibidabo! This is Rorshok’s Ocean Update from the 14th of November twenty twenty-three A summary of what's going down in the 70% surface of the Earth covered in saltwater.

State members of the Pacific Islands Forum attended the regional summit in Cook Islands from Monday the 6th until Friday the 10th. During the meeting, members deliberated over deep-sea mining. Mark Brown, the chair of the forum and prime minister of the Cook Islands, offered seabed nodules as gifts for all the leaders, saying that they could be the solution to develop economies without fossil fuels. On the other hand, some leaders, including Surangel Whipps Jr, president of Palau, raised concerns and pushed for a moratorium to assess the potential ecological harm deep-sea mining might cause on the Pacific Ocean. The debate revolved around balancing economic gain with the risk to ocean ecosystems, and it created two factions: the one who considers deep-sea mining an economic opportunity, and its opponents who are worried about the irreversible damage deep-mining will cause to the seabed and marine species.

During the same summit, Mark Brown also spoke about the need to revise the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, in light of the recent events of Australia’s Aukus submarine deal and the Japanese discharge of treated wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Brown emphasized the treaty's need to reflect the Pacific's contemporary worries, including nuclear waste storage, Japan’s water discharge, and surveillance of nuclear-powered submarines. The members of the Forum discussed these concerns, with efforts to ensure compliance with treaty obligations. Sitiveni Rabuka, Fiji's prime minister, withdrew his support for the discharge of Japanese wastewater. Climate change was one of the main topics on the summit's agenda, specifically decarbonization and Australia's potential contribution to the Green Climate Fund.

In the summit, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese agreed to offer refuge to 280 residents of the island nation of Tuvalu each year, displaced by climate change. Tuvalu is a small group of low-lying islands in the remote Pacific Ocean that are slowly disappearing due to rising sea levels and increased storms. The bilateral agreement was called Falepili Union. Falepili is a Tuvaluan word that expresses neighborliness. The agreement includes a visa program for Tuvaluans, land reclamation in Tuvalu, and bilateral consultation on security pacts with third parties.

From the Pacific to the Indian Ocean. Australia and India have expanded their military bases in the region. The new constructions are mostly located in strategic positions to monitor the three main passages into the ocean: Malacca, Lombok, and Sunda Straits. Felix Chang from the Foreign Policy Research Institute published an article on Monday, the 6th, about the geopolitical situation in the region. He stated that this military expansion is due to China's growing maritime presence in the Indian Ocean. Specifically, India is expanding its bases in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, investing in surveillance aircraft. Australia wants to establish a military base in the Cocos Islands and expand its Stirling naval base to support nuclear-powered submarines.

…and from the Indian to the Atlantic. On Monday the 6th, Mohammed VI, the king of Morocco, announced an international initiative to aid Sahel countries in accessing the Atlantic Ocean. The Sahel Region is located in sub-Saharan Africa, which stretchs from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea. The king remarked on the need for cooperation, highlighting how collaborative projects among different nations and infrastructure investments will allow the Sahel countries bordering the Atlantic to increase the economy of the whole region.

In other news, Jerry DeMarco, Canada’s Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, recently released statements on the inadequate fish catch data collection by Fisheries and Oceans Canada, a federal institution responsible for safeguarding the waters and managing Canada's fisheries and ocean resources. Despite the creation of the Fishery Monitoring Policy, DeMarco said there is a lack of resources for its implementation, leading to incomplete monitoring requirements. He said that “without dependable and timely data on fish being caught, Fisheries and Oceans Canada does not know whether commercial stocks are being overfished.” The department invested thirty-one million US dollars on a system to collect and give access to data across regions but delivered only the initial modules of this new system and had to extend the system's completion deadline from twenty twenty to twenty thirty.

Moving on, a US military aircraft crashed in the eastern Mediterranean Sea during a training exercise on Friday the 10th. The US European Command confirmed the incident but didn’t release any information on the aircraft type, casualties, or crew status. The cause of the accident is still under investigation.

Still in Europe. The shipping company Viasea, mainly operating between the Baltics and Norway, is purchasing two hydrogen-powered container ships with lower energy consumption. The Enova organization, owned by Norway’s Ministry of Climate and Environment, is providing financial support of almost 172 million Norwegian kroner (more than 15 million US dollars). The aim of Viasea is to lead the maritime industry towards investments in emission-free vessels. The two new container ships will feature emission-free technologies such as green hydrogen and rotor sails. Hydrogen refueling will take place in Norway, and the ships will operate with a combination of hydrogen and diesel fuel that will reduce CO2 emissions by over 75%. When hydrogen is available in all the planned route, the ships will run in a 100% hydrogen modality, completely emission-free.

Still on ship companies. Dockendale Green Marine Ship Management is the first ship company exclusively dedicated to methanol-powered ships. The company is located in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. The Indian ship management provider Dockendale Ship Management and Danish methanol marine specialist Green Marine have united to form this new company, combining technical expertise and methanol marine innovation. The partnership wants to inspire the transition to an environmentally friendly shipping industry.

In the Antarctic, scientists put trackers as hats on elephant seals to help them map the ocean floor. According to the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership, the researchers attached the sensors with adhesive to the hair on the seals' heads. Seals shed this hair each year, so they will lose the tracker eventually as well. Thanks to the seals' diving, scientists discovered an underwater canyon in Vincennes Bay, at a depth of over a mile (or 1.5 kilometers). The devices on the seals’ heads measured the water's depth, temperature, and salt levels. According to a paper published in the journal Nature Communications Earth & Environment, scientists want to name the canyon Mirounga-Nuyina, after the scientific name of the elephant seals to commemorate the animals’ help in the research.

Next up, the Suez Canal Economic Zone secured a deal of over fifteen billion US dollars with Chinese companies to boost green fuel production. Walid Gamal El-Din, chairman of the Economic Zone, said that the agreement will develop eleven projects and produce 9,000 job opportunities. The Central Bank of Egypt reported that the Egyptian ports associated with the Zone have also signed seven agreements worth more than one billion US dollars.

Closing with watersports. The Clipper Race fleet finished in Cape Town on Saturday the 11th, after a 3,500 nautical miles South Atlantic trek that started in Punta del Este, Uruguay, with Capetonian Skipper Ryan Gibson's Dare To Lead claiming victory. 700 people from fifty-five nationalities are participating in the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race. Despite unexpected weather and tactical challenges, the runner-up was Perseverance, and Zhuhai ended up third.

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