Seven things we learned at the UN Ocean Conference (and one we didn’t)

Presidents and Indigenous leaders, fishers and financiers were all on the Mediterranean coast for the UN’s big ocean meeting. These items were the talk of the town

A lost fishing net covering a reef in the Adriatic Sea (Image: WaterFrame / Alamy)

The French port of Nice was overrun last week with politicians and diplomats sweltering in suits, cooler representatives from NGOs and local communities, and a staggering number of police.

More heads of state, governments and members of civil society attended the third UN Ocean Conference (UNOC) last week than ever before, hence the tight security. Presidents Macron of France, Lula of Brazil and other leaders discussed the urgent need to protect the ocean from seabed mining, bottom trawling, climate change and other threats.

But some attendees criticised what they saw as a lack of concrete commitments. While campaigners praised the progress championed at the conference by Pacific Islands States, they have slammed heads of bigger economies, especially France, for dragging their feet on halting destructive practices.

Dialogue Earth tallies the victories and letdowns of UNOC.

1. The High Seas Treaty is nearly here

Protecting the huge swathe of ocean that lies beyond the jurisdiction of any one country was a major focus in Nice. Key to this is the High Seas Treaty, also known as the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction agreement. For this to come into force, 60 countries must ratify it.

In the end, only 50 had done so by the end of the meeting. Several national governments, including China, promised to soon. Supporters say it will not be long until the treaty becomes a reality.

“We urge all remaining nations to ratify without delay,” said Rebecca Hubbard, director of the High Seas Alliance group of conservation NGOs. As well as talk of ratifications, delegates at the conference scrutinised how the treaty will work in practice, building on preparatory talks that kicked off in April.

2. It’s two steps forward, one (big) step back on ocean protection

Many countries used UNOC to announce new marine protected areas – sections of the ocean where certain activities are restricted to protect marine life. The slew of announcements in Nice included French Polynesia promising to make a sizeable part of the ocean into such an area, to safeguard species from the smallest corals to the largest sharks.

Leticia Carvalho, secretary general of the International Seabed Authority, was among the speakers at the conference (Image: Regina Lam)

Nations have pledged to protect 30% of the ocean by 2030, but progress towards this has been patchy, with just 8.6% protected in 2024, according to a report released just before the conference. Some progress was made at the conference. But even after all the announcements at UNOC, the 30% goal seems a long way away.

Researchers looking at reserves deemed “effectively protected”, as opposed to protection in name only, said the true figure was 2.8% last year. But it fell to 2.7% before the conference, due to US President Donald Trump opening up a huge marine reserve in the Pacific to commercial fishing.

How effectively, if at all, protected areas really protect was a big issue, nowhere more so than regarding bottom trawling.

3. Bottom trawling bans are in fashion, but doubts linger

In recent years, conservationists have complained increasingly bitterly about marine protected areas (MPAs) that allow bottom trawling. This activity, they say, does huge damage to seabeds and momentum to restrict it has gathered pace.

Even before the conference officially began, campaigners had notched a win with the UK’s environment secretary. Steve Reed announced proposals to ban bottom trawling in 41 of England’s 181 MPAs. France and Ghana followed suit, announcing restrictions on bottom trawling in their waters.

But Steve Widdicombe, director of science at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory in the UK, thinks his country’s announcement is not ambitious enough. Minimising all bottom trawling is crucial, he says. He adds that if the ban ends up displacing trawling activities to other valuable habitats, which happen to be unprotected, destruction would still continue.

Even more ocean campaigners were cynical about how much the French announcement will change things. NGO Oceana’s campaign director Nicolas Fournier said the French moves “are more symbolic than impactful. Bottom trawling isn’t even occurring in most of the new areas proposed for protection.”

4. Indigenous communities are more in evidence than ever, but still struggling to be heard

Several panels at the conference were focused on Indigenous voices and whether they have seats at the decision-making table. Indigenous groups’ representatives joined national and civil society delegations. But some of them felt sidelined. 

Some delegates from the Global South spoke about their struggles to obtain the accreditation, visas and funding needed to attend. Others found translation limited when they finally reached the conference’s “blue zone” for high-level discussions.

The deep sea cannot become the wild west
- UN Secretary General António Guterres

Luene Karipuna, an Indigenous woman of the Karipuna people in Amapá, attended in part to raise awareness of plans to begin drilling for oil at the mouth of the Amazon. In his opening speech, Brazil’s President Lula talked of the importance of Indigenous Peoples. But Karipuna just shook her head when asked if she feels he is listening to concerns about the plans.

“The project threatens not just the environment but how the Indigenous People live,” she told Dialogue Earth. “Here [at the conference], Lula is saying he supports Indigenous rights. But Lula has pushed for this project.”

Karipuna was far from alone in feeling that the question of fossil fuels was often avoided in high-level talks.

5. Fossil fuels are the whale in the room

Talk of climate change was much in evidence among speakers representing national governments, but fossil fuels were barely mentioned by those from leading economies.

In side events and discussions on the streets of Nice, many civil society activists stressed how essential they felt curbing oil and gas exploration is, both to limit climate change and protect ocean environments from its impacts, such as coral bleaching and ocean acidification. Representatives of island states were particularly incensed.

IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez speaking at the World Islands Forum during UNOC (Image: International Maritime Organization, CC BY)

“Of course, it has not been discussed enough here. It is the single greatest cause of damage to the ocean that we’re seeing now, and we’re not talking about it enough,” said Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s minister of climate change, at a press conference. The lack of focus on fossil fuels shows the power of the fossil fuel lobby, he added.

The political declaration adopted at the conference, also known as the Nice Ocean Action Plan, mentioned climate change 21 times and fossil fuels not once.

6. Nations are nautical miles apart on money

Everyone at the meeting said they agreed the ocean needed more protection. But they showed little unity on how to pay and who should pay.

There was much discussion of the fact that UN Sustainable Development Goal 14 – which concerns the ocean – is the least financed of all the 17 goals. One analysis suggests delivering SDG14’s targets requires USD 175 billion per year. Less than USD 10 billion was spent in total between 2015, when the goals were set, and 2019.

Asterio Appi, Nauru’s minister of climate change and national resilience, told a plenary session at the meeting that “ocean financing must be measured in the trillions, not billions”.

As with climate funding, where national commitments continue to lag behind stated goals, it seems the gap between ambition and actual spending in the ocean will not be closed soon.

7. America’s unilateral ocean moves are uniting other countries

The US did not send a senior delegation to Nice, but discussion of the country’s president was hard to avoid.

Macron made some pointed remarks in his speech on the opening day, saying Greenland and the deep sea were “not for sale” (Trump has expressed a desire to take over Greenland.) “For the battle of the ocean to be won, we need to revitalise multilateralism at the UN,” he said. No one in the audience or watching the talks in the overspill rooms and cafes around Nice was in any doubt who he was talking about.

Also at the opening session, UN Secretary-General António Guterres expressed support for the work of the UN’s International Seabed Authority (ISA), which regulates deep-sea mining. “The deep sea cannot become the wild west,” he said. That was widely interpreted as a shot at Trump, as the US has made moves to approve deep-sea mining outside the auspices of the ISA.

China’s vice premier, Han Zhang, met with Guterres and Macron on the sidelines of the conference, reiterating China’s support for multilateralism and the UN-centred international system.

What we didn’t learn: How to do a winning manu

Down the coast from the plenary hall, while delegates were about to expatiate on how vital the ocean is, a select group of attendees made their own statement by plunging into the sea.

“Popping a manu” is a jumping technique created by Māori and Pasifika communities with the aim of making the biggest splash. In Nice, a “manu championship” was organised by Angelo Villagomez, a senior fellow focusing on Indigenous-led conservation at US think-tank the Center for American Progress. Dialogue Earth sent a competitor, who sadly missed out on the gold.

“We are in a conference with very serious conversations and very important people. But we are also in one of the most beautiful ocean spots on the planet. This is a reminder of the joy that the ocean brings us,” Villagomez told Dialogue Earth.

“The reason we have these conferences is so that political leaders can make big announcements and big promises. We saw a little of that, but it needs to increase by a factor of 10 to 100.”

---

This article was originally published on Dialogue Earth under the Creative Commons BY NC ND licence. Read the original article.