UNITED NATIONS Secretary-General Antonio Guterres yesterday urged world leaders to ratify a treaty that would allow nations to establish protected marine areas in international waters, warning that human activity was destroying ocean ecosystems.
Guterres, speaking at the opening of the third UN Ocean Conference (UNOC3) in Nice, France, cautioned that illegal fishing, plastic pollution and rising sea temperatures threatened delicate ecosystems and the people who depend on them.
“The ocean is the ultimate shared resource. But we are failing it,” Guterres said, citing collapsing fish stocks, rising sea levels and ocean acidification.
Oceans also provide a vital buffer against climate change, by absorbing around 30 per cent of planet-heating CO2 emissions. But as the oceans heat up, hotter waters are destroying marine ecosystems and threatening the oceans’ ability to absorb CO2.
“These are symptoms of a system in crisis – and they are feeding off each other. Unravelling food chains. Destroying livelihoods. Deepening insecurity.”
The High Seas Treaty, adopted in 2023, would permit countries to establish marine parks in international waters, which cover nearly two-thirds of the ocean and are largely unregulated.
Hitherto, only an estimated 1pc of international waters, known as the “high seas”, have been protected.
The drive for nations to turn years of promises into meaningful protection for the oceans comes as President Donald Trump pulls the US and its money out of climate projects and as some European governments weaken green policy commitments as they seek to support anaemic economies and fend off nationalists.
The US has not yet ratified the treaty and will not do so during the conference, Rebecca Hubbard, director of The High Seas Alliance, said.
Speaking at the conference, French president Emmanuel Macron said 55 countries’ ratifications of the treaty have been completed, around 15 are in progress with a definite date, and another 15 will be completed by the end of the year, meaning that the required 60 ratifications will be achieved.
“This means that this treaty will be able to enter into force on January 1 of next year, which means we would finally have an international framework to regulate and administer the high seas,” Macron said. The US has not sent a high-level delegation to the conference.
“It’s not a surprise, we know the American administration’s position on these issues,” Macron told reporters.
Britain’s Prince William on Sunday said protecting the planet’s oceans was a challenge “like none we have faced before”.
Ocean experts have also seized on the conference as an opportunity to rally investment for the ocean economy, which has long struggled to attract sizeable funding commitments.
At a two-day gathering of bankers and investors in Monaco over the weekend, philanthropists, private investors and public banks committed 8.7 billion euros over five years to support a regenerative and sustainable blue economy.
Investments in ocean health totalled just $10bn from 2015-2019 – far below the $175bn per year needed, the UN has said.
To address this gap, the UN said on Sunday it was starting work to design a new financing facility, to be launched in 2028, which aims to unlock billions of dollars to restore ocean health by mobilising new and diverse sources of capital.
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