Don't Let Deep Sea Become 'Wild West'

Summit: Ocean, Greenland, Antarctica 'Not For Sale'

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The world could not let the deepest oceans "become the wild west," United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said yesterday, at the start in France of a global summit on the seas.

World leaders are attending the UN Ocean Conference in Nice as nations tussle over contentious rules on mining the seabed for critical minerals and the terms of a global treaty on plastic pollution.

US President Donald Trump has brought urgency to the debate around deep-sea mining, moving to fast-track US exploration in international waters and sidestepping global efforts to regulate the nascent sector.