UN Ocean Conference ends with resilience for greater ambition and global commitment to address dire state of the Ocean

By Hauwa Ali

Following a week of discussions and events at the United Nations Ocean Conference, world leaders has called for greater ambition to ensure that the dire state of the ocean is addressed,

The UN Ocean Conference, held in Lisbon, Portugal,concluded on Friday, with governments and heads of state agreeing on a new political declaration to Save Our Ocean.

At the conference, world leadersadmitted frankly to being “deeply alarmed by the global emergency facing the ocean”, hence  their commitment to take urgent action and to cooperate at all levels, to fully achieve targets as soon as possible.

Among the challenges the Ocean faces are coastal erosion, rising sea levels, warmer and more acidic waters, marine pollution, overexploitation of fish stocks and decrease of marine biodiversity; to which the world leaders have stressed that science-based and innovative actions, along with international cooperation, are essential to provide the necessary solutions.

According to them, a transformative changemeans addressing the cumulative impacts of a warming planet, on the ocean, including ecosystem degradation and species extinctions.

At the conference, more than 150 Member States made voluntary commitments to conserve or protect at least 30 percent of the global ocean within Marine Protected Areas, and other effective area-based conservation measures, by 2030.

Voluntary commitments include:

•”The Protecting Our Planet Challenge”which will invest at least USD $1 billion to support the creation, expansion, and management of marine protected areas by 2030.

•The European Investment Bank will extend an additional EUR 150 million across the Caribbean Region as part of the Clean Oceans Initiative to improve climate resilience, water management and solid waste management.

•The Global Environment Facility approved a $25 million grant towards Colombia’s marine protected areas.

•The Development Bank of Latin America announced a voluntary commitment of USD 1.2 billion to support projects to benefit

•Portugal committed to ensure that 100 per cent of the marine area under Portuguese sovereignty or jurisdiction is assessed as being in Good Environmental State and classify 30% of the national marine areas by 2030.

•Kenya is currently developing a national blue economy strategic plan, inclusive and multi stakeholder-oriented. Kenya also committed to developing a national action plan on sea-based marine plastic litter.

•India committed to a Coastal Clean Seas Campaign and will work toward a ban on single use plastics.

•Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance announced a multimillion-dollar global search for the next generation of projects to build resilience of coastal communities and finance through finance and insurance products.

Other commitments include:

• Protecting or exceeding 30% of national maritime zones by 2030
• Achieving carbon neutrality by 2040
• Reducing plastic pollution
• Increasing renewable energy use
• Allocating billions of dollars to research on ocean acidification, climate resilience projects and to monitoring, control and surveillance

Reaffirming that the ocean is fundamental to life on our planet and to our future, the signatories emphasized the particular importance of implementing the Paris Agreementof 2015, and last November’s Glasgow Climate Pact to help ensure the health, productivity, sustainable use, and resilience of the ocean.

“We are committed to halting and reversing the decline in the health of the ocean’s ecosystems and biodiversity, and to protecting and restoring its resilience and ecological integrity.

“We call for an ambitious, balanced, practical, effective, robust, and transformative post-2020 global biodiversity framework”, the Lisbon declaration continued.

At the closing, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs, Miguel de SerpaSoares, expressed his impressions and commended co-hosts – Portugal and Kenya – for the conference’s enormous success.

“I am impressed by the new commitments [countries made], commitments must be implemented at pace and monitored”.

“[The Conference] has given us the opportunity to unpack critical issues and generate new ideas. It also made clear the work that remains, and the need to scale up that work for the recovery of our ocean”, Mr.Soares said, adding that it is essential to now turn the tide.

With over 6,000 participants, including Heads of State and Government, and representatives of civil societies who attended the Conference, the conference ended withresilience for urgent and concrete actions to tackle the ocean crisis which is the foundationof climate regulation and sustainable development, with the potential to produce food and energy for billions.