This week: Fossil-fuel plans undermine climate vows; olive oil shortages; AI's alternative energy sources

Welcome back. Deep-sea mining is a big step closer to becoming a reality after the International Seabed Authority yesterday wrapped up its last meeting of the year. 

The United Nations-backed organization, which regulates all mineral activities in international waters, discussed pretty much just one thing for the past two weeks: a draft code to govern how miners harvest tennis-ball-sized rocks known as nodules from the seabed.

The mining code is close to completion, according to ISA Secretary-General Michael Lodge. There might be some changes to the draft regulations as certain issues including the financial terms still need to be discussed, but “what you have on paper right now is a pretty good indication of the overall shape of the document,” Lodge said at a press briefing on Wednesday.

Why it matters

Firstly, those tennis-ball-sized nodules contain minerals—such as manganese, nickel and cobalt—that are expected to be in high demand to produce electric-vehicle batteries.

Proponents say deep-sea mining brings an alternative source of minerals, helping to avoid the destruction of terrestrial ecosystems, such as the rainforests of Indonesia that have been damaged by nickel mining.

A second reason this matters is that the deep-sea mining timeline is moving faster than the one developing the rules to cover the practice. In August, prospective Canadian miner The Metals Company, or TMC, said it would launch an application to mine the seafloor as early as July 2024 and start mining by late 2025. Under the rules of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, any prospective miner can put in an application, which if approved, means it will be able to mine the seabed under whatever regulations are permitted at the time.

Lodge said in the briefing that ISA is on track to finalize regulations by its 30th session—scheduled to take place in 2025—meaning the current draft could be the rules TMC is governed by when it starts mining the seabed.

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The oil-and-gas sector could be a powerful agent for change if it really engages in the energy transition. Skepticism is high after decades of sowing doubt over climate change and a new report issued Wednesday by the United Nations Environment Program and several other institutions does little to dispel those concerns. 

The top-20 energy-producing nations intend by 2030 to extract double the amount of fossil fuels that would be consistent with the threshold needed to keep warming in check, writes Eric Niiler. 

Cooks beware: olive oil is getting a lot more expensive.

Spain grows about half the world’s olives and generates a similar proportion of global olive oil—making it even more important to this edible-oil market than Saudi Arabia is to the world of crude oil, writes Yusuf Khan.

In a typical year, Spain produces about 1.4 million metric tons of olive oil, or enough to fill about 3 billion half-liter bottles. But water shortages roughly halved last year’s crop and as this year’s harvest gets under way, farmers expect similar trouble.

Olive oil joins other staple foodstuffs—such as cocoa, sugar and robusta coffee beans—that have rocketed in price after extreme weather has damaged harvests.

The immense amount of energy needed to power generative artificial intelligence models, like the one behind ChatGPT, is creating a new market for data centers that run on alternative energy sources, writes Belle Lin.

Driven by energy demands and sustainability goals, Amazon.com, Microsoft and Google were among the first to explore an array of nontraditional energy sources, including wind and solar, to power their data centers. Now those companies and some newer players are looking at an even wider range of sources, including geothermal, nuclear and flared gas, a byproduct of oil production.

• A $2 million coal mine that might be a $37 billion rare-earth treasure
• Hydrogen is the green fuel even Republicans love
• Recyclers are turning to AI to boost their economics
• Rivian can’t be the next Tesla
• The electric-car era needs a lot of really big trees
• India’s capital hunkers down for annual airpocalypse

• China's new plan to cut methane emissions (Reuters)
• Shell sues Greenpeace for $2.1 million (Financial Times)
• AI helps Unilever find petrochemical replacements (Greenbiz)
• U.S. solar electricity generation to surpass hydropower in 2024 (EIA)
• After the wildfires, will Canada ever be the same? (Guardian)
• Detailed home carbon audits are difficult, but AI can prioritize retrofits with little data (Anthropocene)
• Research on how 120 cities across five continents can cut transport CO2 emissions by 22% without reducing quality of life (Carbon Brief)

WSJ Pro Sustainable Business covers environmental, social and governance issues. Send comments to Bureau Chief Rochelle Toplensky at rochelle.toplensky@wsj.com and follow her on X @RToplensky.