In just a few months, environmental protection has become the target of so many attacks that the simple fact that the third United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC) is bringing together nearly 60 heads of state and government in Nice (southern France) from June 9 to 13 deserves recognition. Following the November 2024 agreement in Baku during the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP) on climate, and then the deal made at the COP on biodiversity in Rome at the end of February, the resilience of multilateralism – itself facing a crisis – has once again been demonstrated.
However, expectations should be tempered by the modest objectives of the conference, given the many threats to the planet’s blue lung, which absorbs 25% to 30% of the CO2 released by human activities. The problems are well known: acidification caused by global warming, various forms of pollution and overfishing, to name just a few.
Unlike a COP on climate change, the UNOC will not end with an agreement to measure the level of countries’ commitment to ocean preservation. Above all, this conference aims to keep up the momentum for a cause that concerns all of humanity.
France will use this opportunity to push for the long-delayed ratification of the high seas treaty, adopted in 2023, which is intended to protect biodiversity in international waters. The participants’ determination regarding marine protected areas within exclusive economic zones – over which coastal states exercise sovereign rights – will also be closely watched.
Short-term thinking
One absence will weigh heavily on the conference: that of the United States, which, since Donald Trump’s return to the White House, has embodied an exaggerated form of anti-environmental reaction. This stance is fueled by a narrow-minded nationalist resentment and a deliberate obscurantism aimed at silencing science and its unavoidable findings.
The latest attack on the ocean came from the Oval Office on April 24, when a presidential order was signed paving the way for deep-sea mining beyond national jurisdictions. This move represents a renewed offensive against the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the International Seabed Authority. This body, which the US does not recognize, is struggling to develop a mining code for oceans under pressure from extractive interests.
Short-term thinking is the main driver of the threats facing the ocean. The scourge of plastic pollution, which will be addressed at the Nice conference, is becoming ever more prominent. The same applies to bottom trawling, which highlights the dilemma between the need to protect biodiversity and the economic and social costs involved. This dilemma is one of the reasons environmental defenders have suffered a string of setbacks in France, within the European Union and around the world. Relentlessly working to overcome it has never been more imperative.
