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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.
