🔴 Live: Macron opens UN ocean summit in Nice in bid to boost marine protections
World leaders attending the UN Ocean Conference in Nice have been told to come up with concrete ideas and funding to tackle what organisers call a global "emergency" facing the neglected seas.
The appeal for unity comes as nations tussle over a global plastics pollution treaty, and the United States sidesteps international efforts to regulate deep-sea mining.
Around 60 heads of state and government are attending the UN Ocean Conference in Nice, including Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his Argentine counterpart Javier Milei.
French President Emmanuel Macron opens the high-level summit on Monday, two days after the president said France would restrict bottom trawling in some of its marine protected areas but was criticised for not going far enough.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
France 24
41 minutes ago
- France 24
UK pumps £14 bn into nuclear plant on path to net zero
The £14.2-billion ($19-billion) investment will end "years of delay and uncertainty", the UK Treasury said in a statement, adding it would unlock a "golden age" of nuclear power to "boost the UK's energy security". The latest injection is part of budget announcements by finance minister Rachel Reeves, who is due to detail her spending priorities on Wednesday, with defence and health at the forefront. The government on Tuesday also announced that British manufacturer Rolls-Royce had won a competition to become the preferred bidder to build small modular nuclear reactors in the UK. SMRs are aimed at cutting the costs and complexity of building nuclear power stations. "The UK is back where it belongs, taking the lead in the technologies of tomorrow," Reeves said. The government added that it would invest more than £2.5 billion in nuclear fusion over five years in what it called a "record investment" for the nascent technology. Nuclear rollout The Labour government, which took over from the Conservatives in July, has promised to deliver "the biggest nuclear rollout program for a generation". The UK has refocused on shoring up nuclear power since the start of the war in Ukraine, in the name of energy security and faced with a fleet of ageing power stations. Britain's government is the majority shareholder in the Sizewell C plant being built in eastern England, after Chinese company CGN left the project and the other partner, French energy giant EDF, scaled back its involvement. The UK is searching for another partner to join the project, then will deliver a "final investment decision", Prime Minister Keir Starmer's spokesperson said Tuesday. The Sizewell C project, which comprises two EPR nuclear reactors each with 1.6 gigawatts capacity, could cost a total £20-30 billion to build. The sum could be even higher, according to some estimates which are disputed by the government and EDF, and it is not expected to start generating electricity until 2035. "Today marks the start of an exciting new chapter for Sizewell C, the UK's first British-owned nuclear power plant in over 30 years," said joint managing directors of the project Julia Pyke and Nigel Cann. The government wants to increase nuclear power's share of the energy mix, as it does not emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Starmer's government has pledged by 2035 to reduce UK greenhouse gas emissions by 81 percent on 1990 levels, under plans to reach net-zero by 2050. The use of nuclear energy as an alternative to fossil fuels is highly controversial, however, with many environmental groups warning about safety risks and the disposal of nuclear waste. The Sizewell C announcement has been met with anger by some local residents worried about the impact of the new plant on the local town of Leiston in Suffolk. Near to Sizewell C is the Sizewell B nuclear power station which is due to close in 2035 -- and Sizewell A which is in the process of being decommissioned. EDF is also building the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant in southwestern England, although it has been blighted by delays and rising construction costs.
Euronews
2 hours ago
- Euronews
Fossil fuels are being overlooked at UN ocean summit, analysts warn
French President Emmanuel Macron kicked off the United Nations Oceans Conference (UNOC) in Nice yesterday with a speech calling on world leaders to unite for ocean protection. But there was one notable absence from the address, according to campaigners: fossil fuels. The global expansion of offshore and coastal oil and gas development poses profound threats to marine ecosystems, as underscored by a new report from Earth Insight, a data analytics company that tracks fossil fuel and mining activities around the world. 'This glaring omission demonstrates that the impacts of fossil fuel extraction on marine biodiversity and coastal communities continue to be overlooked,' says Tyson Miller, Executive Director at Earth Insight. 'France has an opportunity to seize this historic moment and show leadership once again, as it did in 2015 with theParis Agreement, by calling on countries to end the expansion of offshore and coastal fossil fuel activities.' A major focus of this third UNOC is the ratification of a High Seas Treaty, which will allow nations to establish marine protected areas in international waters for the first time. Even at the UN climate summit last year in Baku (COP29), fossil fuels were scarcely addressed in key documents, despite their usage being the primary cause of the climate crisis. Burning fossil fuels is placing a huge burden on oceans, which absorb the excess heat, leading to a slew of dangerous consequences, from killing coral reefs to fuelling more hurricanes. The new report from Earth Insight exposes the vast physical presence of fossil fuel infrastructure in oceans and the destruction and pollution caused by its encroachment. Much of this expansion is taking place in 'frontier regions' - underexplored areas with significant potential for oil, gas and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) development. Looking at 11 case studies from around the world, the analysts find that oil and gas blocks cover over 2.7 million km2 in these frontier regions - an area about the size of Argentina. Moreover, 100,000 km2 of these blocks overlap with protected areas, leaving 19 per cent of coastal and Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) at risk across the frontier regions. Coral reefs, seagrass meadows and mangroves are some of the vital ecosystems being threatened by fossil fuel companies. Approximately 63 per cent of seagrass meadows in the frontier case studies - from Barbados to Senegal - are overlapped by oil and gas blocks, the study warns. The researchers propose a range of solutions to tackle the environmental and social harm caused by fossil fuel extraction, starting with stopping expansion in environmentally sensitive regions and removing unassigned oil and gas blocks. International treaties - like the Fossil Fuel Non Proliferation Treaty - should be strengthened to prohibit new coastal and offshore oil and gas expansion, they say. This is where international conferences like UNOC could be used to galvanise action. Brazil and France have just launched a new challenge to countries to put oceans at the centre of climate action. On Monday, at the UN Ocean Conference, the two countries called on all nations to place ocean-focused action at the heart of their national climate plans - also known as Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs - ahead of the UN climate summit COP30 it is hosting in November. Alongside Brazil and France, an inaugural group of eight countries, including Australia, Fiji, Kenya, Mexico, Palau, and the Republic of Seychelles, has joined the initiative. 'For Brazil, the Blue NDC Challenge represents a key opportunity to strengthen ocean-related climate action and to emphasise the essential role of ocean-based solutions in achieving emission reduction targets,' says Marina Silva, Brazil's Minister for the Environment and Climate Change. 'Through this initiative, Brazil seeks to advance international cooperation on ocean climate action in the lead-up to COP30, and to underscore the need for all countries to fully integrate the ocean into their national climate strategies.' Silva added that in its most recently submitted NDC, Brazil had explicitly included ocean-based climate actions for the first time. That includes commitments like establishing programmes for the conservation and restoration of vital marine ecosystems such as mangroves and coral reefs. 40 per cent of Brazil's territory is located at sea, and it hosts marine ecosystems of global significance - including the only coral reefs in the South Atlantic and the world's largest contiguous mangrove belt along the Amazon coast. NDCs are the centrepiece of countries' efforts to reduce emissions and limit warming to 1.5°C under the Paris Agreement. Countries remain largely off track for meeting the Paris goals, according to the most recent UN emissions gap report, with the next round of climate pledges needing to deliver a 'quantum leap in ambition' to give the world a chance of limiting global warming to 1.5°C. Nations were due to submit updated plans in February, but only 11 of the 195 Paris Agreement signatories made the formal deadline. As of early June, just 22 countries have so far delivered their enhanced NDCs. Brazil is one of only five G20 countries that have submitted updated plans alongside the US under the Biden administration, the UK, Japan and Canada. The real deadline is now September, when the plans will be tallied up before COP30. As the world prepares to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement this year, the Blue NDC challenge is aimed at highlighting the role oceans can play in enhancing these plans. 'Ocean-based climate solutions can deliver up to 35 per cent of the emissions reductions needed to keep 1.5°C within reach,' says Tom Pickerell, global director of the ocean programme at the World Resources Institute and Head of the Secretariat for the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy. 'But we are running out of time to maximise the ocean's potential. That's why countries must place the ocean at the heart of their climate strategies.' Industrial marine sectors and natural ecosystems are 'underused tools' in addressing climate change, Wavel Ramkalawan, President of the Republic of Seychelles, one of the eight inaugural countries that joined the initiative, added.
Local France
2 hours ago
- Local France
French Word of the Day: Far West
Why do I need to know Far West? Because you might be confused about why French protesters might use this English phrase in their complaints. What does it mean? Far West - roughly pronounced far west (with a French accent) - is the French term, albeit written in English, for the 'wild west'. You will see French media use it to describe the literal 'Wild West', meaning the area west of the Mississippi River in the United States in the 19th century, seen at the time as 'untamed' and lawless. The term has also gone on to refer to anything unregulated or outside of the law in French. Sometimes the term is written as Far West , far-west or even farwest . For example, most recently, unions representing ride-share drivers (ex. Uber, Heetch, etc), demanded caps on the total number of drivers. They complained: On veut tout simplement contrôler les effectifs, responsabiliser les plateformes numériques et arrêter ce far-west numérique. (We simply want to regulate the workforce, make digital platforms accountable and put an end to this digital wild west). The genre of Westerns (the same word is used in French, though pronounced in a French manner) also found popularity in the early 20th century, and later in the 1950s and 60s. Advertisement During the silent film era, French filmmakers, like Joë Hamman, made their own versions of early 'westerns' in France, in the Camargue coastal region near Montpellier in the south. These were called les films western camarguais. Use it like this Je ne pense pas que j'aurais survécu dans le Far West. Je ne suis pas doué avec les chevaux. - I don't think I would have survived in the wild west. I'm not good with horses. L'internet est devenu le Far West pour les enfants. Il est temps que le gouvernement commence à le réglementer correctement ! - The Internet has become the Wild West for children. It's time the government started regulating it properly!
