About 80 countries, representing more than half of the world’s maritime zones, pledged on Friday (11) to increase actions to preserve marine ecosystems, end the excessive exploitation of sea resources and combat pollution that degrades the oceans. , especially for plastics. The Brest for the Oceans Commitments, signed at the end of the One Ocean Summit, in France, aim to accelerate the international negotiations underway within the UN on the subject.
The compromise ends the three-day summit, held in the French coastal city on the initiative of President Emmanuel Macron, who also currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union. The French leader, in pre-campaign for the presidential elections in the country, actively led more than four hours of multilateral meetings on the subject, with the participation of heads of state and government, ministers and executives of large international companies linked to economic exploitation. of oceans, such as tourism and logistics.
“We can make historic decisions. They have to start today, in Brest,” Macron said. “This year 2022 needs to be the limit, because the oceans can no longer wait. We must act”, he urged.
The event was attended by 41 political leaders, including the President of the European Commission, Ursula van der Leyen, the American Special Secretary for the Environment, John Kerry, and presidents of countries such as Portugal, Egypt and Colombia, the only one in America Latina to attend the event.
Other leaders, such as the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, the British Boris Johnson and the Indian Narendra Modi, sent video messages to reinforce their commitment to the issue, as well as the UN Secretary General, António Guterrez. Brazil, despite having the 15th longest coastline in the world, was absent from the debates.
commitments
At the event, the Coalition of High Ambition for Nature and Peoples, launched by France in 2021, won the adhesion of over 30 countries, now reaching 83. They demand to expand from 8% to 30% the land and maritime protected areas, in countries’ legal space.
In parallel, the 27 countries of the European Union and 13 more nations have launched a new coalition to promote “high ambition” also in the ongoing international negotiations on biodiversity on the high seas, most of which is a “no man’s land” and in which abuses are the rule. The high seas represent 45% of the Earth’s surface, and a fourth round of UN negotiations for an agreement on its exploration is scheduled for March in New York.
The promises to combat illegal fishing, another important topic of the event, were also reinforced. Currently, irregular activity represents almost a fifth of the total, which undermines attempts to establish sustainable fisheries that do not threaten fish stocks. New countries have pledged to ratify the International Maritime Organization’s agreement on safety standards for fishing vessels and to step up enforcement operations for illegal activity off their coasts.
Investments in the Clean Ocean Initiative, the largest project to reduce plastic pollution of the seas, were doubled, with new contributions from the European Investment Bank, which joined the initiative. The total now reaches US$ 4 billion dollars for financing until 2025. The amount will support actions for the prevention and collection of plastic waste, which reach 9 million tons a year dumped in the oceans.
At the same time, 22 key private sector actors committed to investing in ways to limit greenhouse gas emissions and underwater noise from ships, improve waste management and increase ship recycling. A low sulfur emission zone will be requested by European and Mediterranean countries with the International Maritime Organization.
In parallel, France and Colombia launched a new initiative to promote the “carbon blue”, the capacity to absorb COtwo by coastal ecosystems such as mangroves.
In the first two days of the event, the One Ocean Summit received ministers, scientists, entrepreneurs and members of non-governmental organizations and the United Nations. The conference was the first in a series of multilateral meetings taking place in 2022 on ocean protection and governance.
The next one is at the end of the month, in Nairobi, and should reach an international agreement for the reduction of plastics. Next, negotiations move forward at the UN in New York for a treaty on the high seas, ahead of the UN Biodiversity COP in China in April and another specific summit on ocean governance in Lisbon in June. .
NGOs denounce ‘blue washing’
Outside the One Ocean Summit, non-governmental organizations held a protest and denounced that the event is nothing more than “blue washing”, that is, propaganda with beautiful speeches, but few concrete actions. Greenpeace, for example, claims that France could do more for the cause, in its role as holder of the world’s second largest maritime domain, behind the United States.
“We have a duty to limit overfishing, but today the European Union is the area that imports the most fish. Half of them come from developing countries”, criticizes Lamia Essemlali, president of Sea Shepherd in Europe, during the demonstration.
The Seas at Risk coalition recalled that dolphins are “butchered” on French coasts, trapped in nets and fishing gear, while the NGO France Nature Environnement shows concern about the exploitation of the seabed, coveted by the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries for the wealth of their minerals.
