UN Ocean conference gives ‘glimmer of hope’ for marine life

The UN Ocean Conference was successful, more countries approved a key treaty to protect maritime life, and made more progress in plastics and illegal fishing in our seas.

Approximately 200 countries came together in France to discuss how the most urgent problems faced by the oceans will deal with.

The seas of the world face threats on many fronts from plastic pollution to climate change.

Before the conference, Sir David Attenborough said that before the conference, he was “horrified” from some fishing methods, and hoped that the leading leaders would “realize how important the oceans are to all of us”.

The key aim was to ensure that the open maritime agreement was approved to enable 60 countries to enter into force. The agreement was signed two years ago to put 30% of the ocean in the protected areas. Fifty countries were approved until Friday, but by the end of the year, dozens of more approved.

This and other progress on plastics and illegal fishing seem to have recovered the belief in governments’ ability to work together.

“Unoc gave us a light of hope that the difficulties faced by our ocean and will be handled,” Global Fishing Watch, General Manager of Global Fishing Watch. He said.

“As the open seas agree, governments need to double in order to protect the ocean using both transparency and new technologies.”

Before the UN Oceans Conference, trust in the multilateral process to solve the most urgent problems of the world was low.

In 2024, basic negotiations on biological diversity, plastic and climate collapsed or concluded with limited progress.

The aim of the meeting was not legally to sign a new agreement, but to make progress in previous agreements.

Three years ago, countries agreed to protect 30% of the soil and the sea by 2030 to support biodiversity.

It is difficult to achieve this for international waters, because there is no clear control of control. For this reason, in 2023, countries signed the open marine agreement, which agreed to put 30% of these waters in sea -protected areas.

Before the conference, only 27 of the 60 states needed to force him were approved. For just a few days, this figure jumped to 50 and would be approved by the end of the year, which was accepted a dozen. England said it would start before 2026.

Elizabeth Wilson, Senior Director of Environmental NGOs Environmental NGO for this UN agreement, Elizabeth Wilson, Pews Trust.

“Over the years we have worked on many different treaties, and approval usually lasts for five years, seven years.

“Therefore, the fact that the open marine agreement is at the top shows the global momentum behind the work to protect more of the open seas.” He said.

Although the major nations, including the United States and China, they did not approve of the treaty, they showed their intention to do so in the future.

And Russia, who did not support it because of concerns about the impact on fishing, said that it would continue with this stance on Friday.

However, the US diplomats in the UN negotiations praised progress.

Former US Secretary of State and Climate Ambassador John Kerry said, “From the open Seas agreement to the sea -protected region of French Polynesia, UnoC has provided the latest evidence that real success is possible when we work together.” He said.

More countries have emerged with promises to put their national waters in sea protection areas (MPAs) and restrict the most harmful fishing practices.

During the week, the UK announced that it would try to ban the lower troll in about one -third of the British MPAs.

This has long been a demand for environmental charities, and more recently, Sir David Attenborough claims that protection is only on paper without such prohibitions.

The largest sea -protected area so far has been initiated by the French Polynesia in its own waters, and will prohibit 900,000 km2 extractional fishing and mining.

With the others made during this commitment and conference, 10% of the oceans are now in protection.

Astrid Puentes, R4’s last day program program, “This world is sending a message that multilaterality is important,” he said.

“We need this leadership. A single biom on the ocean planet, they are all connected, so we definitely need to strengthen international law.”

However, it has been difficult to limit destructive fishing practices without China’s participation, which operates the world’s largest fleet.

However, at the conference, the government announced that it approved the agreement of measures to the port state, which is a legal commitment to eliminate illegal and irregular fishing.

Although French President Macron opened the conference with a sharp warning about the threats of deep marine mining, countries were divided into this issue.

Last week, 2,000 scientists suggested more research to governments and suggested that all deep sea discoveries be paused; Only 0.001% of the sea bed were mapped.

However, only 37 countries paid attention to the recommendations and called for a moralemia for deep marine mining.

Oceano Azul Foundation Environmental Attorney and Marine Specialist Predeep Singh said, “More states need to call for a moraper in the sea bed mining, so that we need to have this regulatory framework before any mining activity takes place.” He said.

In April, President Trump abandoned the idea of ​​a global approach in April, when the US administration declared that it would start to allow activity.

However, Mr. Singh even thinks that most countries do not support the US approach.

At the last meeting of the conference, the beautiful ocean action plan summarized the commitments of countries passed.

The issue of plastic pollution is particularly a deep issue for oceans, but in December, negotiations on reducing production levels were broken.

There are about 200 trillion pieces in the ocean and if no operation is not performed, it is expected to double by 2040.

Bethany Carney Almroth, a professor of ecotoxicology at the University of Gothenburg, said that both physical plastic and chemicals in them threaten life.

“There are more than 16,000 chemicals in plastics and we know that more than 4,000 have dangerous properties, so they can be carcinogenic or mutagenic or reproductive toxic,” he said.

The conference ministers from 97 countries, including the UK, signed a joint political statement stating that they wanted an ambitious agreement to be signed.

However, this included only from the top ten countries that produced oil. It is made of plastic oil, so it can damage the revenues of the production reduction.

It is also very important to reduce oil production if countries want to decrease in planet -heated emissions and limit the worst effects of climate change.

The oceans are at the front ranks of this – 90% of the additional heat put into the atmosphere by humans were absorbed by the oceans and gradually caused destructive sea heat waves.

This conference did not see a new commitment to reducing emissions, but more poor nations pushed their richer colleagues to release the previously promised money for climate action faster.

“Many small islands I share the frustration of developing nations in terms of the sensitivity of international financial facilities,” Tuvalar Prime Minister Feleti Teo said. He said.

He continued: “We have no effect to change their policies, but we need to continue the pressure, such meetings give us the opportunity to continue to tell the story.”