There are high hopes for the ocean tied to next month’s high-level meeting in Nice. But some are already worried that it will fail to deliver.
A dizzying range of politicians, scientists, fishers, activists, journalists and those whose job descriptions touch all those categories will head to the French city for the UN Ocean Conference.
Dialogue Earth will be there too, discussing China’s role in marine protection and seeing if the conference can significantly turn the dial on ocean issues.
Olivier Poivre d’Arvor, France’s “ocean envoy”, says the priorities for the 9-13 June meeting are securing more marine protected areas, putting in place a ban on deep-sea mining, and making sure enough countries sign up to the High Seas Treaty that it can enter into force.
Science journal Nature said in an editorial that the conference “promises to be a rare event at which most of the key players are in the same location and free of the pressure-cooker atmosphere of a treaty negotiation. They must make the most of this opportunity.”
A draft ‘Nice declaration’ – which nations are expected to sign after haggling over the text at the conference – is entitled “Our ocean, our future: accelerating action”. It currently speaks of the need to urgently address the ocean triple crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. “Bold, ambitious, just and transformative action” is needed, it adds.
But the draft largely references existing agreements, treaties and pledges, and is light on new, firm commitments. Megan Randles, head of Greenpeace’s delegation to the meeting, said in a statement that it was “a weak political declaration with glaring omissions and weak language”. Small-scale fishers have also complained that their role in protecting ocean ecosystems is marginalised in the draft text.
UNOC is not the only ocean meeting taking place in 2025. Busan in Korea last month hosted the latest Our Ocean Conference.
Thousands of commitments totalling USD 160 billion have been made at Our Ocean conferences since the first one in 2014, according to a report published for the event. These include climate-resilience funding, establishing marine protected areas and improving the sustainability of fisheries.
The figures were released by WRI for the 10th iteration of the meeting, in Busan. But WRI points out that USD 175 billion is actually needed annually for ocean conservation, according to one estimate.
Ahead of the UNOC meeting, Poivre d’Arvor issued an ‘SOS Ocean’ message, asking “Will we have to wait for the next United Nations Conference, at the earliest in 2028, to make the dream of fair and sustainable management of the ocean a reality?”