Latest news with #UNOC
Al Etihad
19 hours ago
- Politics
- Al Etihad
Nations urged to make UN summit a 'turning point' for oceans
2 June 2025 09:41 PARIS (AFP) Nations will be under pressure to deliver more than just rhetoric at a UN oceans summit in France next week, including much-needed funds to better protect the world's overexploited and polluted third UN Ocean Conference (UNOC) seeks to build global unity and raise money for marine conservation even as nations disagree over deep-sea mining, plastic trash, and Sunday, hosts France are expecting about 70 heads of state and government to arrive in Nice for a pre-conference opening ceremony, including Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da are "in a state of emergency" and the June 9 to 13 meeting "will not be just another routine gathering", said UN under-secretary-general Li Junhua."There's still time to change our course if we act collectively," he countries are expected to send ministers or lower-level delegates to the summit, which does not carry the weight of a climate COP or UN treaty negotiation or make legally binding United States under President Donald Trump is unlikely to send a delegation at has promised the summit will do for ocean conservation what the Paris Agreement did for global climate present are expected to adopt a "Nice Declaration:" a statement of support for greater ocean protection, coupled with voluntary additional commitments by individual leaders are expected to turn out in force and demand, in particular, concrete financial commitments from governments."The message is clear: voluntary pledges are not enough", Ralph Regenvanu, environment minister for Vanuatu, told summit will also host business leaders, international donors, and ocean activists, while a science convention beforehand is expected to draw 2,000 ocean experts. Temperature Check France has set a high bar for securing by Nice the 60 ratifications needed to enact a landmark treaty to protect marine habitats outside national jurisdiction. So far, only 28 countries and the European Union have done so. Olivier Poivre d'Arvor, France's oceans envoy, says that without the numbers, the conference "will be a failure." Bringing the high seas treaty into force is seen as crucial to meeting the globally agreed target of protecting 30 percent of oceans by 2030.
France 24
19 hours ago
- Politics
- France 24
Nations urged to make UN summit a 'turning point' for oceans
The third UN Ocean Conference (UNOC) seeks to build global unity and raise money for marine conservation even as nations disagree over deep-sea mining, plastic trash and overfishing. On Sunday, hosts France are expecting about 70 heads of state and government to arrive in Nice for a pre-conference opening ceremony, including Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Oceans are "in a state of emergency" and the June 9 to 13 meeting "will not be just another routine gathering", said UN under-secretary-general Li Junhua. "There's still time to change our course if we act collectively," he told reporters. Most countries are expected to send ministers or lower-level delegates to the summit, which does not carry the weight of a climate COP or UN treaty negotiation or make legally binding decisions. The United States under President Donald Trump -- whose recent push to fast-track seabed mining in international waters sparked global outrage -- is unlikely to send a delegation at all. France has promised the summit will do for ocean conservation what the Paris Agreement did for global climate action. Nations present are expected to adopt a "Nice Declaration": a statement of support for greater ocean protection, coupled with voluntary additional commitments by individual governments. Greenpeace has slammed the text -- which was agreed after months of negotiation -- as "weak" and said it risked making Nice "a meaningless talking shop". Pacific leaders are expected to turn out in force and demand, in particular, concrete financial commitments from governments. "The message is clear: voluntary pledges are not enough", Ralph Regenvanu, environment minister for Vanuatu, told reporters. The summit will also host business leaders, international donors and ocean activists, while a science convention beforehand is expected to draw 2,000 ocean experts. Temperature check France has set a high bar of securing by Nice the 60 ratifications needed to enact a landmark treaty to protect marine habitats outside national jurisdiction. So far, only 28 countries and the European Union have done so. Olivier Poivre d'Arvor, France's oceans envoy, says that without the numbers the conference "will be a failure". Bringing the high seas treaty into force is seen as crucial to meeting the globally-agreed target of protecting 30 percent of oceans by 2030. The summit could also prove influential on other higher-level negotiations in the months ahead and provide "a temperature check in terms of ambition", said Megan Randles, head of Greenpeace's delegation at the Nice conference. In July the International Seabed Authority will deliberate over a long-awaited mining code for the deep oceans, one that Trump has skirted despite major ecological concerns. That comes in the face of growing calls for governments to support an international moratorium on seabed mining, something France and roughly 30 other countries have already backed. And in August, nations will again seek to finalise a binding global treaty to tackle plastic trash after previous negotiation rounds collapsed. Countries and civil society groups are likely to use the Nice meeting to try to shore up support ahead of these proceedings, close observers said. Turning point Nations meeting at UN conferences have struggled recently to find consensus and much-needed finance to combat climate change and other environmental threats. Oceans are the least funded of all the UN's sustainable development goals but it wasn't clear if Nice would shift the status quo, said Angelique Pouponneau, a lead negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States. "With so many competing crises and distractions on the global agenda, it's hard to be confident that the level of ambition needed will actually show up," Pouponneau told AFP. Costa Rica, which is co-hosting the conference with France, said public and private commitments of $100 billion with "clear timelines, budgets and accountability mechanisms" could be expected. "This is what is different this time around -- zero rhetoric, maximum results," Maritza Chan Valverde, Costa Rica's permanent representative to the UN, told reporters. Pepe Clarke, oceans practice leader from WWF, told AFP there was "an understandable level of scepticism about conferences". But he said Nice must be "a turning point... because to date the actions have fallen far short of what's needed to sustain a healthy ocean into the future".
CNBC
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- CNBC
Can art save the earth? Artists share how their work strives to do just that
Politics, science and the law aren't the only fields with the ability to influence climate change policy — when it comes to making direct interventions, art shouldn't be underestimated, industry insiders say. The arts have an "essential" role to play in shaping environmental governance, according to the organization overseeing the arts program at the United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC), which starts on June 9, in Nice, France. According to Markus Reymann, co-director of contemporary art and advocacy foundation TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, art and culture can "rekindle relationships" with the environment and those who inhabit it. At UNOC, TBA21 will oversee about 20 activities, including exhibitions, workshops and panel discussions, to raise awareness of and engagement with the ocean around the topics of regenerative practices and sustainability. The initiatives "assert the vital role of culture and arts in high-level political decision-making," according to an emailed statement. The exhibition "Becoming Ocean: a social conversation about the Ocean," is part of UNOC and features work from more than 20 artists, "exploring the main challenges facing the Ocean," according to TBA21's website. "[Art] can nurture and foster [the] care and the agency that we've now externalized to experts — the scientists are going to take care of this, politicians will take care of this … and so we [feel we] have nothing to do but consume and make money to be able to consume. And I think art can break that open," Reymann told CNBC in a video call. It's a theme that artist Maja Petric relates to. Her light installations, or "sculptures," aim to evoke what people feel when they experience pristine nature, she told CNBC by video call. When asked whether her work can influence climate policy, she said in an email: "As an artist, I don't speak in metrics or policy. But there is evidence: it's in every person who lingers with the piece, sometimes for minutes, sometimes for hours." In May, Petric won an innovation prize for her work "Specimens of Time, Hoh Rain Forest, 2025," as part of the Digital Art Awards put on by gallery The House of Fine Art and auction house Phillips. The sculpture appears in the form of a glass cube, which glows with light that changes color based on live temperature data taken from the Hoh Rain Forest in near Seattle, Washington State. "The idea is: what if … none of those landscapes exist in the future, but how will we think of them?" Petric said of her work. It's not only contemporary art that explores human influence on the natural world. "Historically, perhaps the greatest contribution artists have made in the context of environmental risk is to remind wider society of what might be lost. From Turner landscapes and Constable skyscapes to Richard Long's walks in the wilds, artists remind us of the preeminence of the natural world," Godfrey Worsdale, director of the Henry Moore Foundation, said in an email to CNBC. Worsdale also noted the German artist Joseph Beuys' "7000 Oaks" project, for which the artist and his team planted 7,000 oak trees, one of which stands outside the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, England. "It is growing steadily as the modern-day city swirls around it. But as we know, the oak grows slowly and the world is changing ever more quickly," Worsdale said. Art can be a way of making the climate crisis "easier to comprehend and act upon," according to Lula Rappoport, community coordinator at Gallery Climate Coalition. "The greatest obstacle to meaningful policy is how abstract and immense climate change can feel," Rappoport told CNBC by email. "Art can bridge this gap by helping us understand challenging concepts and imagining alternative futures," she said. Rappoport cited Ice Watch London, a 2018 project that saw artist Olafur Eliasson bring 24 large ice blocks from an iceberg in Greenland to London, as an example of "how art can literally bring distant concepts close to home." For artist Ahmet Ogut, art has a "power and agency" that he said doesn't need to wait to be recognized by politicians or scientists. "Art doesn't need permission, it works in parallel systems, activating new imaginaries, forming temporary communities, and offering tools of resistance," he said in an email to CNBC. Ogut pointed to artist Lauren Bon's "Bending the River," a large-scale project that has diverted water from the Los Angeles River to irrigate public land as an artwork that has intervened "directly in ecological infrastructure," and created "a form of civic reparation." Ogut's work "Saved by the Whale's Tail (Saved by Art)," which will be launched at Stratford subway station in London on Sept. 10, was "inspired by an incident that occurred near Rotterdam in 2020 when a train overran the tracks and was saved by a sculpture of a whale's tail," according to Transport For London's website. "Art can help us stop pretending we're separate from the planet," Ogut said. "The future lies not in grand declarations, but in small, consistent solidarities. That's where art begins." Ogut also advocated for artists to be included early on in projects that tackle climate change, and cited Angel Borrego Cubero and Natalie Jeremijenko's Urban Space Station, which recycles building emissions and grows food indoors, as an example of "how deeply integrated artistic approaches can be." "We need more collaborations where artists are not brought in to merely "aestheticize" or question, but are involved from the beginning as equal partners," Ogut said.
Time of India
2 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
France says it has common ground with China on environment
France says it has common ground with China on environment (Photo: AFP) France and China have found "points of convergence" on the environment, french minister for ecological transition Agnes Pannier-Runacher said Friday at the end of a visit to Beijing. Her trip came ahead of the UN Ocean Conference (UNOC), which is due to start in Nice on June 9, and the COP30 climate summit in Brazil in November. After the United States again withdrew from the landmark Paris climate agreement once President Donald Trump returned to office in January, France has advocated for the European Union and China to form a united front on environment and climate. "Points of convergence were clearly felt," Pannier-Runacher told AFP after holding meetings with multiple Chinese officials, including environment minister Huang Runqiu and natural resources minister Guan Zhi'ou. "Commitment to the Paris Agreement " and "multilateralism" were two such points, she said. Pannier-Runacher said she was hoping for a joint-statement ahead of the COP30 summit to help give momentum to negotiations. "At a time when science is doubted by some, when the impact of climate deregulation on our lives is contested (...) it is important for the European Union and China to assume their responsibilities," she said. Huang told Pannier-Runacher that China would "keep observing the objectives set by the Paris accord and work with all parties to promote positive results" at the COP30 summit, a statement issued by his ministry said. China is the world's top emitter of greenhouse gases, but has embraced renewable energy sources, electric vehicles and is working to reduce carbon emissions. It plans to peak carbon emissions by 2030 and reach net zero by 2060, and some analysts have speculated that slowing growth and rapid renewable installations mean emissions have already levelled off. Emissions indeed fell in the first quarter of 2025, an independent think tank said earlier this month. Pannier-Runacher hailed China's "dynamism," saying all could learn from its "quickness" on adopting renewable energy technologies . The french minister also said China was a leader in those technologies, and expressed hope it would invest in France and other European countries to create jobs.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
France says it has common ground with China on environment
France and China have found "points of convergence" on the environment, French minister for ecological transition Agnes Pannier-Runacher said Friday at the end of a visit to Beijing. Her trip came ahead of the UN Ocean Conference (UNOC), which is due to start in Nice on June 9, and the COP30 climate summit in Brazil in November. After the United States again withdrew from the landmark Paris climate agreement once President Donald Trump returned to office in January, France has advocated for the European Union and China to form a united front on environment and climate. "Points of convergence were clearly felt," Pannier-Runacher told AFP after holding meetings with multiple Chinese officials, including environment minister Huang Runqiu and natural resources minister Guan Zhi'ou. "Commitment to the Paris Agreement" and "multilateralism" were two such points, she said. Pannier-Runacher said she was hoping for a joint-statement ahead of the COP30 summit to help give momentum to negotiations. "At a time when science is doubted by some, when the impact of climate deregulation on our lives is contested (...) it is important for the European Union and China to assume their responsibilities," she said. Huang told Pannier-Runacher that China would "keep observing the objectives set by the Paris accord and work with all parties to promote positive results" at the COP30 summit, a statement issued by his ministry said. China is the world's top emitter of greenhouse gases, but has embraced renewable energy sources, electric vehicles and is working to reduce carbon emissions. It plans to peak carbon emissions by 2030 and reach net zero by 2060, and some analysts have speculated that slowing growth and rapid renewable installations mean emissions have already levelled off. Emissions indeed fell in the first quarter of 2025, an independent think tank said earlier this month. Pannier-Runacher hailed China's "dynamism," saying all could learn from its "quickness" on adopting renewable energy technologies. The French minister also said China was a leader in those technologies, and expressed hope it would invest in France and other European countries to create jobs. ehl/tc-sst/bgs
