{"id":5674,"date":"2025-06-30T10:55:15","date_gmt":"2025-06-30T09:55:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/?p=5674"},"modified":"2025-07-04T22:16:19","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T21:16:19","slug":"momentum-for-the-ocean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/opine\/2025\/06\/30\/momentum-for-the-ocean\/","title":{"rendered":"Momentum for the Ocean?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The third UN Oceans Conference, which took place in Nice from the 9th to the 13th of June, just came to an end. Leaders around the world are celebrating their great achievements as marine conservationists and their flashy commitments for the future of ocean protection. Their pledges do sound very good, representing the most ambitious global efforts for marine restoration to date, but whether they translate into any noteworthy impact will be decided based on what happens next. So let\u2019s unpack them a bit.<\/span><\/p>\n

As president of the host nation, Macron opened the conference with a speech that was celebrated around the world for his impassioned declaration on the urgency of action, calling out less vocal countries and promising a dramatic expansion of French \u201chighly protected\u201d marine zones, drastically increasing no-trawl zones. Only, if you take a closer look at his promises, you will notice that his \u201cnewly protected\u201d areas were already closed to bottom trawling. <\/span>No new protections. No new laws.<\/span> His claims were so outrageously false that the NGO Bloom is now suing the French government over this misinformation campaign. Nonetheless, he did manage to create enthusiasm for the dominating topic of the conference: the High Seas Treaty. Officially termed Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction treaty, this international agreement was reached at the 2023 UN Ocean Conference, with the goal to reach the 60 ratifications it needs to come into force by this conference. The snail race for ratification was painful to watch over the past two years, when the treaty still only had 22 ratifications in May. The momentum of the conference was barely enough to reach 50 ratifications and with the headlines turning away from the conference, who knows how long it will take before 10 more countries ratify?<\/span><\/p>\n

While other countries were at least able to commit to ratification, the UK delegation proudly announced that they will have the necessary legislation required for ratification ready by the end of the year. As it was a central discussion point throughout the conference that stronger action and control is required for international fishing activities, the UK government has now promised to actually introduce some measures in their Marine Protected Areas, or, as they call it, \u201cto escalate support for the global marine environment\u201d. Apparently rattled by both President Macron\u2019s speech and David Attenborough\u2019s recently released documentary \u201cOcean\u201d, the government has made the ridiculously long overdue commitment to ban bottom trawling in \u201cprotected\u201d UK waters. Well, in half of them. Escalation indeed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the remainder of the conference, countries managed to formally recognise what the rest of the world already knows.<\/span> That Indigenous communities and environmental defenders are crucial for environmental protection, so they need support. That the ocean is crucial for climate mitigation, meaning it’s probably a good idea to integrate ocean science and nature-based solutions into national adaptation plans. And that conservation costs money but the environmental crisis will cost more, so there is a need for a good financing system and less wealthy nations will need support. It is always exciting when governments manage to recognise the obvious. And last but not least, and I cannot believe this is only happening now, final negotiations are underway for a legally binding treaty to end plastic pollution. The target is to have the document ready by the end of 2025, tackling the full life cycle of plastics. But if the High Seas Treaty is anything to go by, <\/span>we are lucky if it comes into force by 2028<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

In many ways, UNOC ended like any other high stakes global summit, with ambitious promises to tackle financial challenges, illegal fishing, plastic pollution, climate change and to accelerate national action. However, what the official commitments are worth will be shown by the actions that follow far away from a suitable stage for big speeches.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The third UN Oceans Conference, which took place in Nice from the 9th to the 13th of June, just came to an end. Leaders around the world are celebrating their great achievements as marine conservationists and their flashy commitments for the future of ocean protection. Their pledges do sound very good, representing the most ambitious […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":5677,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","iawp_total_views":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[227,236,354,636,1142,1083],"wf_post_folders":[337],"class_list":{"0":"post-5674","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-opine","8":"tag-anastasia-goelitz","9":"tag-climate-change","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-ocean","12":"tag-opine","13":"tag-united-nations"},"acf":[],"author_meta":{"display_name":"Anastasia Goelitz","author_link":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/author\/anastasia-goelitz\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Momentum-for-the-Ocean-Image-1-300x225.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Opine<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Opine<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["Anastasia Goelitz<\/a>","Climate Change<\/a>","Environment<\/a>","Ocean<\/a>","Opine<\/a>","United Nations<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Anastasia Goelitz<\/span>","Climate Change<\/span>","Environment<\/span>","Ocean<\/span>","Opine<\/span>","United Nations<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 1 year ago","modified":"Updated 1 year ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on 30 June 2025","modified":"Updated on 4 July 2025"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on 30 June 2025 10:55","modified":"Updated on 4 July 2025 22:16"},"featured_img_caption":"Image Credit: Tyler Lastovich via Pexels","series_order":"","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5674"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5675,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5674\/revisions\/5675"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5674"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=5674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}