Thousands of politicians, experts and environmental defenders have gathered since Monday in Lisbon at the call of the UN to work to preserve the fragile health of the oceans and avoid the “effects in cascade” which threaten the environment and humanity.
“Unfortunately, we have taken the ocean for granted. We are currently facing what I would call a state of ocean emergency,” said UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres of Portugal.
“The ocean is not a dumping ground. It is not an infinite source of plunder. It is a fragile system on which we all depend” and “our failure to preserve the ocean will have cascading effects”, has he warned in his opening speech of this five-day conference, postponed several times due to the pandemic when it was first to be held in April 2020.
In his speech, the president of the Palau archipelago, Surangel Whipps Jr, pleaded in favor of a moratorium aimed at protecting the seabed from the extraction of rare metals necessary for the manufacture of electric batteries.
“Seabed mining compromises the integrity of our ocean habitat and should be discouraged wherever possible,” he said, alongside Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama.
“Mining, wherever it occurs, is well known to have environmental costs,” said Sylvia Earle, former science director at the US Agency for Oceanic and Atmospheric Observation (NOAA).
– Who is watching? –
“On land, we can at least monitor, see and troubleshoot, and minimize the damage. Six thousand meters (20,000 feet) below the surface, who’s looking?” she added.
With less than 10% of the world’s oceans currently protected, 100 countries have joined a coalition calling for 30% of the world’s land and ocean surface to be set aside as protected areas by 2030, British Minister Zac Goldsmith has announced. .
This initiative could be the cornerstone of a treaty that should be finalized at the United Nations summit on biodiversity to be held in December in Montreal. It is supported by the United States, European Union countries, Mexico, Canada, Japan and India, but China, Russia, Indonesia and Brazil have not yet joined. .
“Working with scientists, we decided that 30% of our maritime area should be protected, and we did it,” outgoing Colombian President Ivan Duque told AFP.
More than half of the newly protected marine areas will be areas where fishing, mining, drilling or other extractive activities are prohibited, he said.
The seas, which cover more than two-thirds of the planet’s surface, generate half the oxygen we breathe and represent a vital source of protein for the daily lives of billions of people.
The ocean also plays a key role for life on Earth by mitigating the impacts of climate change. But the cost is considerable.
By absorbing around a quarter of CO2 pollution, even as emissions have increased by 50% over the past 60 years, the sea has become more acidic, destabilizing aquatic food chains and reducing its ability to capture ever more gases. carbonic.
And, absorbing more than 90% of the excess heat caused by global warming, the ocean is experiencing powerful sea heat waves that are destroying precious coral reefs and spreading oxygen-deprived dead zones.
– “Devastation” –
“We still only have a small idea of the scale of the devastation wrought by climate change on the health of the oceans,” Charlotte de Fontaubert, the Bank’s leading blue economy expert, told AFP. world.
At the current rate, plastic pollution will triple by 2060, to one billion tonnes per year, according to a recent OECD report.
Already, microplastics cause the death of a million birds and more than 100,000 marine mammals each year.
The problem of overfishing is also on the agenda of the five-day conference, organized jointly by Portugal and Kenya.
“At least a third of wild fish stocks are overfished,” Kathryn Mathews, scientific director of the American NGO Oceana, told AFP.
“Illegal fishing vessels wreak havoc with impunity, in coastal waters and on the high seas,” she said.
Another central subject: “blue food”, supposed to make the oceans a means of subsistence that is both sustainable and socially responsible.
Many ministers and some heads of state, including French President Emmanuel Macron, expected on Thursday, will take part in this meeting which, however, is not intended to become a formal negotiation session.
Some participants will nevertheless take the opportunity to defend an ambitious policy for the oceans in view of the two crucial summits which will be held at the end of the year: the UN climate conference COP27 in November in Egypt, followed in December by the long-awaited United Nations conference on biodiversity COP15, which will take place in Canada under the Chinese presidency.
Source: Seychelles News Agency