Traditional dancers occur during the opening session of the Third United Nations Ocean Conference, which brings the leaders, researchers and activists on Monday to discuss the way of protecting marine life until June 13, in the city of southern Nice.
Ludovic Marin / AFP via Getty Images
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Ludovic Marin / AFP via Getty Images
Nice, France – World leaders, scientists and officials met on Monday to open the third United Nations Conference on the Ocean And launch a global appeal to save the world’s oceans, which, according to scientists, are in poor health.
The presidents of France and Costa Rica launched the summit with speeches calling for a daring action to solve the countless problems with which the oceans face, in particular warming, the rise of the seas, the pollution – in particular the plastics – overfishing and the destruction of biodiversity and marine environments.
The summit work actually started last week, when thousands of scientists from around the world have come down to develop recommendations to give political decision -makers.
Scientists met in large tents along the colorful port of Nice, where Azuric waters sparkle under the pastel facades of Mediterranean buildings. As the summit approaches, research and scientific boats stopped in the port, including a large giant Norwegian ship with three masts.
Scientific skepticism
Former Secretary of State John Kerry, who was a special climate in the Biden administration, opened the scientific conference.
“Your knowledge and expertise have never been more relevant than today, and we have never known it – at least in the modern world – an era when the work of the life of scientists is so openly despised or ignored by those who claim to lead,” said Kerry.
He has not mentioned any names, but the policies of the Trump administration who conflict with scientific consensus and reduce research funding have been in everyone’s mind here. American scientific agencies like the United States such as NASA and NOAA, the national ocean and atmospheric administration. Their scientists were not allowed to attend the summit, say the organizers.
However, Lisa Levin, professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego, is present, as well as 140 American scientists from private institutions and universities.
“The main thing we see is the total lack of American federal scientists,” said Levin. “They played a major role on almost all the problems discussed in this conference, so they are really missed. The NOAA, in particular, has long -term observations which are threatened that the entire scientific community around the world depends.”
“American oceanography has always been a strong contributor to world science,” explains François Houllier, CEO of IfremerThe French Institute of Marine Sciences which brought together scientists. “There is only one world ocean, everything is connected. For this reason, international cooperation is really something critical.”
A good example, says Houllier, is the Argo programwhich uses some 4,000 floats worldwide to record ocean temperatures at all depths. These data are crucial for predictions and understanding of climate and bad weather.
The deployment of a float without stopping the ship requires special boxes to protect the floats. Here, crossed hinds are assembled to protect the antenna on the Melville RV.
CAPT. Maury / Noaa
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CAPT. Maury / Noaa
“If you don’t have them, you don’t know that the ocean warms up,” said Houlier. “If you don’t know that the ocean warms up, you don’t understand why sea level is increasing.”
Houlier says the United States provides around half of the tanks. And their data, downloaded from satellites, is stored in two servers – one in France and one in the United States, the Trump administration has announced cuts Funding for the NOAA, which threatens American participation in the program.
“And therefore what will happen in the coming years in the United States is very important,” said Houlier. “The United States will be able to continue to contribute to this international international program or will they stop?”
Jeff Ardron, director of Ocean Africa at the Conservancy nature, said this third Ocean conference takes an emergency that the previous two had not had.
“There is increasing recognition and acceptance very quickly that the ocean problems are important and they need our attention,” said Ardron.
The United Nations Special Envoy for the Ocean Peter Thomson says scientific evidence is undeniable.
“We are no longer talking about what could happen. It happens,” he said.
Speaking of fossil fuels emissions, Thomson said: “We have to recognize the fact that we have changed our system. We have embarked on a giant geo-engineering project that we did not even know that we were doing, and we managed to warm the planet,” he said, explaining that 90% of the warming is captured and kept by the oceans.
“And of course, the global warming warms the ocean, and the heating of the ocean means elevation of sea level,” he said.
A family looks at the boats on the Lympia port water where the United Nations Ocean Conference takes place in Nice, in France.
Annika Hammerschlag / AP
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Annika Hammerschlag / AP
Coastal mayors are worried
Hundreds of mayors from coastal cities also presented themselves for the conference. They held their own coastal resilience summit During the weekend, at the invitation of the mayor of Nice Christian Estrosi.
The mayors were from the Pacific islands and the Norwegian cities like Bergen. Norway has the second longest coast in the world.
“The challenges with the climate and the increase in sea level cannot be resolved alone,” said the mayor of Bergen Marit Warncke. “This requires cooperation beyond borders – cities, regions and countries with their civil society and their technology developers must be involved.”
Many ocean problems are linked to climate change, have stressed scientists. Among the proposals: greenhouse emissions must be reduced and plastics must be used less. Some 8 million tonnes of plastic are poured into the sea each year and these plastics decompose into particles called nanoplastics absorbed in animal and human blood circulation.
Part of the ocean which was previously considered intact and stable – the deep sea – has also warmed up. And for the first time, it draws a lot of attention.
“Our climate would be far too hot to live if we did not have the ocean and most people do not realize that most of the ocean is the deep sea,” said Levin of the Institution of Oceanography. “But it’s always the great stranger.”
She says that she is generally ignored in major discussions and political negotiations. “But many conversations here have been on the threats facing the deep sea.”
The largest of them is mineral extraction on the high seas and the idea of making the deep sea a dumping ground for unwanted carbon. Although no mineral exploitation on the high seas has yet taken place, the Trump administration gave the pursue For that.
Nice scientists say that the deep sea is always a place of great uncertainty and far too fragile to be falsified. The Ardron of the Conservancy nature says that any damage could take tens of thousands, even millions of years, to be repaired.
Diva Amon is a marine scientist at Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory from the University of California in Santa Barbara.
“My request is that the decision-makers of the United Nations Conference (to) take action,” she said. “For too long, there has been an inaction. Many people say that we don’t know enough, need much more science. Yes, you still need more science. But we have enough science to make informed decisions on many things. More than enough for world leaders to make the right decisions to save our oceans.”