Know better. Do better.

Hi, I'm Alister Doyle. I'll be joining Megan to bring you this newsletter over the summer while Laurie is taking a well-earned break. I've been reporting on climate and the environment for decades, and am excited to bring Context's climate reporting directly to your inbox. Let's dive in.

Into the depths

In the classic 1870 science fiction novel "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea", submarine Captain Nemo says "in the depths of the ocean there are mines of zinc, iron, silver and gold that would be quite easy to exploit".

That prediction was probably thrillingly fanciful to 19th century readers of French author Jules Verne's book, perhaps like modern proposals to mine the Moon, Mars or asteroids for minerals needed back on Earth.

This week, however, Nemo's fantasy is edging close to reality.

The U.N. International Seabed Authority is meeting in Kingston, Jamaica, to try to decide how to handle applications for mining in the sunless depths, or whether to call a pause, fearing harm to the ocean environment.

Our correspondent Jack Graham explains the controversy.

Mining advocates like Gerard Barron, CEO of The Metals Company, reckons it is better to mine the seas than clear rainforests in nations such as Indonesia in the hunt for metals like cobalt or manganese vital for green industries such as batteries for electric vehicles.

Opponents, including some governments and environmental groups, want a pause or moratorium on ocean mining, saying the deep ocean is home to unknown life including squid, fish, brittlestars and tubeworms.

I met Barron once in Oslo – he let me hold a potato-sized rock he kept in his pocket, among the first polymetallic nodules brought up from the Pacific Ocean floor. The nodules contain nickel, copper, cobalt and manganese, which are essential for the global energy transition.

It was surprisingly lightweight and a dullish grey - and probably the most costly object I've ever touched. The Kingston meeting may decide the fate of trillions of the nodules scattered at depths of 4,000 metres or more between Mexico and Hawaii.

Chart-topping artists around the world are working to reduce their carbon footprints for concerts that can draw audiences as big as the population of a city.

Acts including Billie Eilish or Coldplay have won plaudits for trying to make their tours more eco-friendly, cutting use of fossil fuels and waste in travel, staging, catering and merchandise.

Joanna Gill writes for us about many of the big music acts are trying to get into step with climate action, with measures including ticket surcharges for green projects. 

But there are also risks in trumpeting too loudly about going green.

In what sounds like a success, Coldplay said it has slashed its emissions by 47% on a current world tour compared to previous tours, close to its goal of cutting them by half.

But last year, Brussels-based campaign group Transport and Environment berated Coldplay as "useful idiots for greenwashing". It said Coldplay had wrongly teamed up with Finnish oil refiner Neste for biofuels, accusing Neste of links to deforestation.

Coldplay said its efforts to cut emissions were "a work in progress".

Are women the best guardians of forests? A pioneering 30-year scheme in Nepal gives evidence that they are.

"In comparison to other community forests in the country, the ones managed by women are doing exceptionally well," Nabaraj Pudasaini, joint secretary of the government's Department of Forest and Soil Conservation told our reporter Mukesh Pokhrel.

Pudasaini said that three decades of efforts to favour women for leadership has produced more robust forests. Women spend more time in forests than men, engendering a "deeper love and understanding" of forests, he said.

Around the world, women have long been associated with tree plantings. In 2004, late Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai won the Nobel Peace Prize for her Green Belt Movement which mobilised women to plant 30 million trees in East Africa. 

Since then, such projects have boomed: we now have initiatives like the trillion tree campaign.

Have a good week - maybe plant a tree?

Alister