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RTÉ News
14-06-2025
- Politics
- RTÉ News
What was the result of the UN Oceans Conference?
The third United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3) drew to a close Nice yesterday following five days of high-level meetings between governments, experts, climate campaigners and community representatives. More than 15,000 delegates took part in the week-long summit, including more than 60 heads of state and government. By the end of the summit, more than 170 countries adopted a political declaration entitled 'Our ocean, our future: united for urgent action' (also known as the 'Nice Ocean Action Plan'), committing to urgent action on conserving and sustainably using the world's ocean. The main goals of the declaration include expanding marine protection areas, limiting marine pollution and increasing financial aid for coastal and island nations. Speaking to reporters at yesterday's closing press conference, Li Junhua, UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs and UNOC3 Secretary-General, said the pledges made at Nice "must be rigorously implemented, tracked, and scaled". More than 800 new voluntary commitments were made by countries in the lead up to, and during, the summit, co-hosted by France and Costa Rica. Highlights included the European Union's new Ocean Pact - a €1bn commitment from the European Commission to protect marine life and strengthening the blue economy - and French Polynesia's commitment to create the world's largest marine protected area, encompassing about five million The 'High Ambition Coalition for a Quiet Ocean', a club of 37 countries, co-led by Canada and Panama and which includes Ireland, was also launched at UNOC3 to campaign for a reduction in underwater noise pollution. Germany launched a €100m action plan to clear World War II-era munitions in the Baltic Sea and North Sea, while, Indonesia and the World Bank launched a 'Coral Bond', a new financial instrument to raise private capital to conserve coral reef ecosystems in Indonesia's marine protected zones. A key objective of UNOC3 was to get more countries to sign and ratify the so-called High Seas Treaty, shorthand for the not-so-easily-named United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction. The treaty aims to create marine protection zones in international waters, to curb overfishing and safeguard marine ecosystems. Nineteen countries ratified the treaty during UNOC3, bringing the total number of ratifications to 50. Sixty ratification are required in order for the treaty to come into force at UN level. Taoiseach Micheál Martin told RTÉ News at UNOC3 last Monday that Ireland would ratify the treaty. Olivier Poivre D'Arvor, French special envoy at UNOC3, said, "what was decided in Nice cannot be undone. No illegal path is acceptable". Nine-five countries also supported a French initiative at the summit to limit plastic production and consumption, ahead of the next round of talks in Geneva in August to iron out the terms of a global plastics treaty. According to the UN, up to 12 million metric tonnes of plastic ends enters the oceans and seas each year. That is the equivalent of a bin truck every minute. However, it was not all plain sailing in Nice. The United States did not send a high-ranking delegation to the summit. Such a move was hardly surprising given US President Donald Trump's recent executive order to fast-track the permit process for deep sea mining licences in US and international waters, a relatively new technique that involves dredging the seafloor with a pump to extract metals and minerals. In contrast, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, when referring to deep sea mining during his speech to UNOC3 delegates on Monday, said "the deep sea cannot become the Wild West". French President Emmanuel Macron had also called for a moratorium on deep sea mining during his opening speech at the summit. This week has shown that the current US administration is at odds with most of the world's governments when it comes to protecting the world's oceans.
Hans India
14-06-2025
- Business
- Hans India
170 nations in Nice commit to expand marine protected areas, combat pollution
Nice (France): The 2025 United Nations Ocean Conference concluded with more than 170 countries adopting an inter-governmentally agreed declaration committing to urgent action to conserve and sustainably use the world's oceans. The political declaration titled 'Our ocean, Our future: United for urgent action' calls for concrete steps to expand marine protected areas, decarbonise maritime transport, combat marine pollution, and mobilise finance for vulnerable coastal and island nations, among others. The declaration -- together with bold voluntary commitments by states and other entities -- constitutes the Nice Ocean Action Plan, successfully concluding the five-day conference with a boost to environmental multilateralism. 'Pledges made this week must be rigorously implemented, tracked, and scaled,' said United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Li Junhua, who served as the conference Secretary-General. 'The momentum we have generated must carry us forward to COP30, global and regional ocean forums, and national decision-making, and translate into decisive national action.' Voluntary commitments made during the conference include: The European Commission, as part of its Ocean Pact, announced an investment of 1 billion EUR to support ocean conservation, science and sustainable fishing. French Polynesia pledged to create the world's largest marine protected area to safeguard its seas, covering its entire exclusive economic zone, approximately 5 million square km (1.93 million square miles). New Zealand committed over $52 million towards supporting enhanced ocean governance, management and science in the Pacific Islands region. Germany launched a 100 million EUR immediate action programme for the recovery and clearance of legacy munitions in the German Baltic and North Seas -- the first of its kind. Indonesia, the World Bank and other partners launched a Coral Bond, a groundbreaking financial instrument designed to mobilise private capital to conserve coral reef ecosystems within marine protected areas in Indonesia. Thirty-seven countries, led by Panama and Canada, launched the High Ambition Coalition for a Quiet Ocean -- the first high-level political initiative to tackle ocean noise pollution on a global scale. Italy committed 6.5 million EUR to strengthen surveillance by the Coast Guard in marine protected areas and on oil platforms, including through a satellite surveillance system capable of detecting potential oil spills in real time. Canada contributed 9 million US dollars to the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance to help Small Island Developing States and coastal developing countries increase their resilience to the impacts of climate change through nature-based solutions. Spain committed to creating five new marine protected areas that would allow protection of 25 per cent of its marine territory. A collective of United Nations agencies and global partners launched a co-design process for One Ocean Finance -- a bold new effort to unlock billions in new financing from ocean-dependent industries and blue economy sectors. A United Nations Ocean Conference report, listing the voluntary commitments in an annex, will be published after the summit. In a big step towards entry into force of the agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement), 19 more states ratified the agreement in the margins of the conference, and 20 more signed it, bringing the total number of signatures to 136, and ratifications to 50 states plus the European Union. Ten more ratifications are needed for the agreement to enter into force. The BBNJ Agreement, adopted in June 2023, is a crucial legal instrument to protect marine life and ecosystems in the two-thirds of the ocean that lie beyond any country's jurisdiction. From June 9 to 13, as many as 55 heads of state and government, along with 15,000 participants from civil society, business, and science, participated in the UN Ocean Conference co-hosted by France and Costa Rica, including more than 450 side events, to accelerate action and mobilise all actors to conserve and sustainably use the world's oceans. Ten ocean action panels produced forward-looking recommendations to guide implementation across key themes -- from marine pollution and nature-based solutions to the role of women, youth, and indigenous peoples in ocean governance. The fourth UN Ocean Conference in 2028 will be co-hosted by Chile and Korea.
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Business Standard
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Business Standard
India pushes for Global Ocean Pact, launches data portal at UN meet
In 2024, the Potsdam Institute's Planetary Health Check warned that ocean acidity could soon become the seventh planetary boundary to be breached Puja Das Delhi Calling for urgent global action on ocean health, Union earth sciences minister Jitendra Singh, at the third United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3) in Nice, Paris, on Tuesday, pushed for a global ocean pact and launched SAHAV—a digital ocean data portal—to promote transparent, science-based ocean management, according to an official statement. The Ocean Pact is a comprehensive strategy to better protect the ocean, promote a thriving blue economy, and support the well-being of people living in coastal areas. This comes against the backdrop of mounting ocean challenges, including climate change, pollution, and overexploitation of marine resources, which require collective and urgent action. Global mean ocean pH has been steadily declining at rates not seen for at least the past 26,000 years, making the ocean more acidic. The ocean is, on average, about 4% more acidic than it was in 2015. This also assumes significance as the summers of 2023 and 2024 saw nearly 3.5 times the number of marine heatwave days compared to the average. There were also extreme and record-breaking heatwaves in 2022. Half of the marine heatwaves since 2000 would not have occurred without global warming, and they now last three times as long as they did in 1940. India also backed the swift ratification of the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) Agreement and advocated for a legally binding global plastics treaty. Calling for a robust Nice Ocean Action Plan, Singh urged the international community to invest in innovation, ratify the BBNJ Agreement, and finalise the plastics treaty. 'The ocean is our shared heritage and responsibility,' he said, expressing India's readiness to work with all stakeholders—governments, private sector, civil society, and indigenous communities—to ensure a sustainable ocean future. The BBNJ Agreement, also known as the High Seas Treaty, is an international agreement aimed at protecting marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (the high seas). It is the third implementing agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The treaty aims to establish a comprehensive framework for managing marine resources and biodiversity in the high seas, addressing issues such as degradation, sustainable use, and benefit-sharing. The treaty is also essential to achieving the global 30x30 target—an international pledge to protect 30% of the planet's land and sea by 2030. It creates a legal process for countries to establish marine protected areas in the high seas, including rules for destructive activities such as deep-sea mining and geo-engineering. It also establishes a framework for technology-sharing, funding mechanisms, and scientific collaboration among countries. Crucially, decisions under the treaty will be made multilaterally through conferences of parties (COPs), rather than by individual countries acting alone.
France 24
06-06-2025
- Politics
- France 24
Europe's troubled waters: Does EU Ocean Pact meet the challenge?
Europe 12:04 Issued on: From the show Europe is trying to put itself at the forefront of the global ocean agenda, releasing its Ocean Pact ahead of a United Nations Oceans Conference in the French coastal city of Nice. More than 90 percent of EU marine waters are overexploited by industrial fishing, seabed mining and growing offshore infrastructure, according to Seas At Risk, an association of environmental organisations from across Europe. And yet, healthy oceans are the precondition for breathing healthy air, ensuring sustainable food supplies and securing energy independence – as more of our electricity is set to come from the sea. With oceans being so interconnected with so much else in our lives, it's not surprising that MEPs are saying the EU should give its ocean policy higher priority, and lead by example at UNOC in Nice. We discuss what's at stake with two MEPs.
Arab News
05-06-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
Ailing Baltic Sea in need of urgent attention
Unveiling its road map to protect Europe's seas, the European Ocean Pact, Brussels announced a summit on the state of the Baltic Sea in late SeptemberThe Baltic Sea is home to some of the world's largest dead marine zones, mainly due to excess nutrient runoff into the sea from human activities on landHELSINKI: Decades of pollution and climate change have caused fish to disappear from the Baltic Sea at an alarming rate, with the European Union on Thursday vowing to make the sea an 'urgent priority.'Unveiling its road map to protect Europe's seas, the European Ocean Pact, Brussels announced a summit on the state of the Baltic Sea in late semi-enclosed sea is surrounded by industrial and agricultural nations Germany, Poland, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and the three Baltic to the Atlantic only by the narrow waters of the Danish straits, the Baltic is known for its shallow, low-salinity waters, which are highly sensitive to the climate and environmental changes that have accumulated over the years.'Today, the once massive Baltic cod stocks have collapsed, herring stocks in several sub-basins are balancing on critical levels, sprat recruitment is at a record low and wild salmon stocks are in decline,' Swedish European MP Isabella Lovin, rapporteur for the EU Committee of Fishing, warned in a report, calling the situation 'critical.'The Baltic Sea is home to some of the world's largest dead marine zones, mainly due to excess nutrient runoff into the sea from human activities on land — a challenge the sea has long grappled runoff has primarily been phosphorus and nitrogen from waste water and fertilizers used in agriculture, as well as other activities such as causes vast algae blooms in summer, a process known as eutrophication that removes oxygen from the water, leaving behind dead seabeds and marine habitats and threatening species living in the agriculture is the biggest source of nutrient biodiversity in the relatively small sea has also deteriorated due to pollution from hazardous substances, land use, extraction of resources and climate change, according to the Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission (HELCOM).'The state of the Baltic Sea is not good,' Maria Laamanen, a senior adviser at the Finnish environment ministry, told change poses 'a massive additional challenge' for the marine environment, she the world's coastal seas, the Baltic Sea is warming the fastest.A 2024 study said sea surface and sea floor temperatures have increased by 1.8 and 1.3 degrees Celsius respectively in the Finnish archipelago in the northern Baltic Sea, in the period from 1927 to consequences of rising temperatures already affect species, while increased rainfall has led to more runoff from land to waste water treatment and gypsum treatment of agricultural soil, as well as an expansion of protected marine areas in Finland, have had a positive effect on the maritime environment, according to Laamanen, who said environmental engagement had grown in recent years.'The situation would be much worse without the measures already implemented,' she her report, Lovin called for an ambitious reform of fisheries, with stronger attention paid to environmental and climate change report also questioned whether the Baltic could continue to sustain industrial-scale trawling, and suggested giving 'priority access to low-impact fisheries and fishing for human consumption.'The head of the Finnish Fishermen's Association (SAKL) Kim Jordas said eutrophication was to blame for the declining fish stocks in the Baltic Sea, not overfishing.'Looking at cod for example, it is entirely due to the state of the Baltic Sea and the poor oxygen situation,' Jordas told Finland, the number of commercial fishermen has been declining, with a total of around 400 active today.
