UN Ocean Conference: America's absence felt as world gathers to discuss climate

ITV News

3 hours ago

Ahead of the conference's opening, Prince William called for more action to protect the ocean, which he said was a "diminishing resource"
It is in many ways a painful irony that in the year of the 10th anniversary of the historic United Nations Climate Change Conference - which in the following year 2016, led to the Paris Climate Accords - the UN is holding another landmark meeting in France to address the continuing damage to our planet's health.
It is painfully ironic because ten years ago, virtually the whole world, 195 countries, came together to talk, negotiate and agree to some fundamental commitments to reduce the harm humans were doing to the planet.
For one thing, it brought together the US, China and Russia as signatories.
The idea today that those three countries would come together to lead the world in a common global endeavour, aimed at something beyond their own vital interests, is hard to imagine.
So much has changed since the high-water mark of the Paris Climate Accords - the US, for one, pulled out of those commitments.
Yet ten years later, thousands of delegates and around 50 world leaders and representatives from around 100 nations began five days of similarly detailed, complex and long-negotiated terms and commitments.
However this time, it is focused not so much solely on limiting global warming, but on focusing on how one part of our planet is in many ways the key to what happens to us all - the health of the world's oceans.
The Earth, after all, is 70% water. It is why the third United Nations Ocean Conference in the southern French coastal city of Nice, defined by its relation and position on the Mediterranean, campaigners are calling for this to be the "Paris conference of the Seas".
Speaking on the eve of the start of the UN Conference, Prince William said: "The truth is that healthy oceans are essential to all life on earth.
"They generate half of the world's oxygen, regulate our climate and provide food for more than three billion people."
But the Prince said, despite all the challenges, he was still an optimist - because he believed in the optimism of Sir David Attenborough.
In front of world leaders like President Macron of France and President Lula of Brazil, Prince William quoted Sir David Attenborough 's words: "If we save the sea, we save our world."
The key points of the UN Ocean Conference will be whether the so-called "High Seas Treaty" will be ratified by 60 nations.
This needs to happen this year, or it will be very difficult to meet the 2030 target to protect 30% of our oceans and lands.
High seas refer to international waters, which make up nearly two-thirds of our oceans. Establishing Marine Protection Areas in these waters is crucial to reaching 30% of ocean protection.
Some of the fundamental statistics on the state of our oceans are sobering to say the least.
Our oceans are 30% more acidic than in pre-industrial times. They absorb around 23% of annual CO2 emissions generated by human activity, and help mitigate the impacts of climate change.
Yet marine pollution reached 17 million metric tons in 2021, a figure set to double or triple by 2040.
Furthermore, every year, an estimated five to 12 million metric tonnes of plastic enter the ocean - nearly 90% of litter found on sea floors is single-use plastic.
The atmosphere may not be as heady as the Paris Conference was in 2015, and the work and focus on the very specific aims and targets may be more focused and might not have the same sense of occasion.
But they have an air of grounded realism of what is politically and economically possible in a very changed geo-political world, where the challenges remain the same.