时代周刊:散落在太平洋深处的黑矿石--解锁气候密码(5)（在线收听）

A few days later, the debate grew even more heated as the tiny Pacific island nation of Nauru, the ISA member sponsoring Barron’s company in a mining application,

几天后，辩论变得更加激烈，因为瑙鲁这个太平洋小岛国——国际海底管理局的成员，为巴伦的公司提供了采矿申请的担保——

announced it wanted to start mining eff orts, triggering the ISA’s “two-year rule,” a clause that allows member states to notify the organization of their intention to start deep-sea mining,

宣布了它想开始采矿，触发了国际海底管理局的 “两年规则”，该条款允许成员国通知该组织它们打算开始深海采矿，

even if the regulations governing mining have not yet been formalized.

即使有关采矿的法规尚未正式确定。

It also triggered international uproar.

这也引发了国际社会的一片哗然。

“Deepseamining companies are peddling a fantasy of untold profi ts and minimal risks,” says Louisa Casson of Greenpeace’s Protect the Oceans campaign.

"绿色和平组织保护海洋运动的路易莎卡森说：“深海采矿公司正在兜售一种难以计数的利润和最小风险的幻想。”

“Governments who claim to want to protect the oceans simply cannot allow these reckless companies to rush headlong into a race to the bottom, where little- known ecosystems will be ploughed up for profit and the risks and liabilities will be pushed onto small island nations.”

“那些声称要保护海洋的政府不能允许这些鲁莽的公司一头扎进海底的开采竞赛中，在那里，鲜为人知的生态系统将被争夺以获取利润，而风险和责任将被推给小岛屿国家。”

Barron, who has invested millions of dollars in preliminary environmentalimpact assessments, describes the abyssal plain where the nodules are located as a “lifeless desert” where the impact of mining is likely to be minimal, if felt at all.

巴伦在初步环境影响评估中投入了数百万美元，他将结核所在的深海平原描述为一个 “无生命的沙漠”，采矿的影响可能是极其微小的。

“I think we are overthinking this.

“我认为我们过度担忧了这个问题。

There is a reason why they are full of battery metals.

那里的海底充满了电池金属是有原因的。

It’s so we can make batteries,” he says.

他说：“这是为了让我们能够制造电池。

IF YOU WERE TO DISCOVER a cobalt seam in your backyard, the revenue would, in most cases, belong to you or your government.

如果你在你的后院发现了一个钴矿，在大多数情况下，收入将属于你或你的政府。

But much of the world’s known deep-sea metal deposits lies under international waters, which means it belongs to the world.

但是，世界上大部分已知的深海金属矿藏位于国际水域，这意味着它们属于世界。

First discovered in the Arctic Ocean in 1868, polymetallic nodules can be found in almost all oceans, but are concentrated in the CCZ.

1868年首次在北冰洋发现的多金属结核，几乎在所有的海洋中都可以找到，但它们集中在东太平洋的克拉里昂﹣克利珀顿区。

They were widely regarded as geologic curiosities until the 1960s and ’70s, when several multinational mining consortiums started exploring the potential of the CCZ, with mixed results.

在20世纪60年代和70年代之前，它们被广泛认为是地质学上的奇物，当时几个跨国采矿财团开始探索东太平洋的克拉里昂﹣克利珀顿区的潜力，结果喜忧参半。

Despite an estimated yield of 21 billion tons of nodules, commercial interest in mining the CCZ waned, largely because of high extraction costs and the relative abundance of existing sources of the same metals—particularly nickel—on land.

尽管估计有210亿吨的结核产量，但人们对开采东太平洋的克拉里昂﹣克利珀顿区的商业兴趣减弱了，这主要是因为开采成本高，而且陆地上现有的相同金属-特别是镍的来源相对丰富。

Recognizing that the nodules, along with other potentially lucrative seabed mineral deposits in international waters, should be treated as a “common heritage of mankind,” the U.N.

认识到结核和国际水域中其他潜在的有利可图的海底矿藏应被视为 “人类的共同遗产”。

the U.N. established the ISA in 1994, under the U.N.Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

1994年，联合国根据《联合国海洋法公约》（U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea）建立了国际海底管理局。