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Nature Sustainability (2024)
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Deep-sea mining could provide a substantial supply of metals that we urgently need to decarbonize our society, yet its environmental impact remains intractable. Considering on-land resources remain abundant and can be extracted using well-established risk management, deep-sea mining cannot currently be justified.
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Camborne School of Mines, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Cornwall, UK
Rich Crane, Kate Littler, Kathryn Moore & Declan Vogt
Department of Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter, Cornwall, UK
Chris Laing & Callum Roberts
Department of Biosciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
Kirsten Thompson
Centre for Geography and Environmental Science, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Cornwall, UK
James Scourse
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Correspondence to Rich Crane.
The authors declare no competing interests.
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Crane, R., Laing, C., Littler, K. et al. Deep-sea mining poses an unjustifiable environmental risk. Nat Sustain (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-024-01326-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-024-01326-6
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