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UN Ocean Conference makes headway in quest to protect high seas
The UN Ocean conference in southern France ended on Friday with some progress towards marine conservation and calls from environmental organizations for quick implementation if the international community is to reach its goals by 2030.
Representatives from 170 countries spent five days in the French resort of Nice discussing the protection of the world's oceans, with signatories hoping to use the conference to make progress on the UN goal of effectively protecting at least 30% of the world's oceans by 2030, compared with 8% today.
"This conference has made significant progress on marine protection, despite the difficult geopolitical situation," German Environment Minister Carsten Schneider said on Friday.
The conference saw more support for an international agreement to protect the high seas, which make up around 60-70% of the oceans. The High Seas Protection Agreement, adopted by the United Nations two years ago aims to regulate international waters.
More than a dozen states ratified the agreement at the conference, meaning the target of 60 states ratifying should be reached by September, according to France, which co-hosted the conference with Costa Rica.
The event also built momentum to address plastic waste, with some 95 countries calling for the production of primary plastics to be limited.
They also want an obligation for countries to report on their production, import and export, and to see a commitment in the agreement to phase out the most problematic plastic products and chemicals in plastics.
"What is outlined here is a good start and, at the same time, the absolute minimum required to effectively combat plastic pollution," said Florian Titze from WWF Germany.
Progress was also made on numerous other topics in Nice, including a French and German initiative to identify the exact location of munitions dumps in the Baltic and North Seas.
A group of states also wants to push ahead with the fight against noise pollution in the ocean, while UNESCO wants to do more to promote marine education.
However, the executive director of the OceanCare organization, Fabienne McLellan warned that UN Ocean Conferences serve as litmus tests for whether the international community can achieve the goals it has set itself for protecting the oceans by 2030.
She said countries around the world are still a long way from these goals.
The next UN Ocean Conference is planned for 2028 and will be hosted by South Korea and Chile. Two previous editions took place in New York in 2017 and Lisbon in 2022.
