UNITED NATIONS — The world’s nations are gathering in France next month to tackle what the United Nations calls a global emergency facing the world’s oceans as they confront rising temperatures, plastic pollution choking marine life, and relentless overexploitation of fish and other resources.
The third U.N. Ocean Conference aims to unite governments, scientists, businesses and civil society to take action and raise money to address these and other crises facing the oceans and the people who rely on them for their survival.
Conference Secretary-General Li Junhua told reporters on Tuesday he hopes it will not be another routine meeting but “the pivotal opportunity” to accelerate action and mobilize people in all sectors and across the world.
The conference, co-sponsored by France and Costa Rica, takes place in Nice on the French Riviera from June 7 to June 13. It is expected to bring together more than 60 world leaders, dozens of ministers, about 4,000 government officials and 6,000 members of civil society, Li told The Associated Press.
Costa Rica’s U.N. Ambassador Maritza Chan Valverde said accelerating action to conserve and use the ocean sustainably “means cutting decision-making time from years to months” and engaging all 193 U.N. member nations, more than 1,000 cities and over 500 corporations simultaneously.
“What is different this time around?,” she said. “Zero rhetoric. Maximum results.”
Valverde said she expects participants to make commitments totaling $100 billion in new funding to address the crisis facing the oceans.
France’s U.N. Ambassador Jérôme Bonnafont said his country’s priorities for the conference include obtaining 60 ratifications for the treaty to protect biodiversity in the high seas adopted in March 2023 so it goes into effect. The treaty’s mission is to ensure sustainable fishing, mobilize support to protect and conserve at least 30% of the oceans’ waters, fight plastic pollution, “accelerate decarbonization” of maritime transportation and mobilize financing.
Conference participants are expected to adopt a declaration that says action is not advancing fast enough to address the impact of “the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.”
“We underscore the central role of a healthy and resilient ocean in sustaining life on Earth, ensuring global food security, and supporting billions of lives,” the final draft says.
It supports new scientific research to meet the challenges of climate change and improve the scientific understanding of the oceans. It does not address the issue of deep-sea mining because a consensus could not be reached, Li said.
The Trump administration said last week that it will consider selling leases to extract minerals from the seabed off the South Pacific island of American Samoa, a potential first step in a wider industry push to allow deep-sea mining, which environmentalists oppose because they say it could irreparably harm marine ecosystems.
The declaration and voluntary commitments from governments and all sectors are expected to become the Nice Ocean Action Plan.