accelerate the agenda for the protection of the oceans

Brest will host the One Ocean Summit from February 9 to 11, and Emmanuel Macron wants to make it a key moment of the French presidency of the Council of the European Union.

This international summit will bring together nearly 400 experts and around twenty Heads of State and Government. The idea is to accelerate the international agenda for the protection of the oceans. 2022 is an important year because several international meetings are already scheduled to take measures in favor of the protection of the blue planet.

In the coming weeks, stopping plastic will be at the heart of the United Nations environment assembly, scheduled for Nairobi, Kenya. In March, there will be negotiations on biodiversity within the United Nations itself in New York. These meetings will continue with the COP15 on biodiversity, scheduled for spring, in Kunming, China, the UN summit on the oceans in June in Lisbon, and in November, the conference on climate change in Sharm el- Sheikh in Egypt.

Catherine Chabaud is deeply committed to protecting the oceans. The former navigator is now a Member of the European Parliament and believes in political action to change things.

“I expect a lot from this summit. It’s not a Franco-French meeting, all the states are working and mobilizing today.”

Catherine Chabaud, MEP, former navigator

at franceinfo

At European level, all attention is now focused on the implementation of the green pact, this famous “green deal” which should allow the voice of the ocean to be heard. One of the priorities today is to finance the restoration of terrestrial ecosystems, but Catherine Chabaud pleads for the same action to be carried out for marine ecosystems: mangroves, large algae, seagrasses or coastal wetlands.

The former navigator recognizes that certain files are “skating” such as the treaty on the high seas, the objective of which is to preserve biodiversity beyond the exclusive economic zones. “Currently there is a legal vacuum, she says, the fight against plastic is a priority, but not only!”

Currently, we throw 11 million tonnes of plastic into the sea each year, and this figure should double by 2020. Catherine Chabaud is in favor of the implementation of binding measures, but she says that things are progressing little by little. France is even a little ahead, she assures, thanks to the anti-waste and circular economy law of Brune Poirson, the former Secretary of State for Ecological and Solidarity Transition.

Plastic is a scourge but the MEP believes that we must also tackle illegal fishing, which is another real scourge around the world. It also wants measures to be taken for the creation of marine protected areas in Antarctica. Currently, the meetings of the Commission for the Preservation of Marine Biodiversity in Antarctica are at a standstill, because China and Russia have opposed it for almost 8 years!

Since her arrival in the European Parliament, Catherine Chabaud and several scientists such as the oceanographer Françoise Gaill, plead for the ocean to be classified “common good of humanity”. They will also take advantage of the “One Ocean Summit” to launch a call for the creation of an “ocean COP”, on the model of the COP for the climate, in order to obtain concrete and binding objectives for the protection of the ocean.

Catherine Chabaud also wants an IPCC for the ocean to be set up with the development of a digital twin for the ocean, which would allow us to deepen our knowledge of the oceans through the collection of international data.

Catherine Chabaud also believes that we need to promote better management of waste, in particular waste that is swept away by rainwater and ends up in the ocean, as we saw a few months ago, in Marseille.

Maritime transport will have to evolve and change. You should know that 90% of the objects of our daily life arrive at our place by sea because we import a lot. With the objective of carbon neutrality in 2050, the sector will have to reduce its CO2 emissions by 90%, which is considerable.

Many tracks are currently being developed such as sail propulsion, but we must go even further, believes the MP. “Europe has very important know-how and must become the champion of green ships”, she says. And to cite the example of a boat that is currently under construction in Europe.“In a few months, he will transport the parts of the European Ariane rocket to Guyana”.

The sea is a strategic issue for Europe, believes Catherine Chabaud who recognizes that States and industrialists are mobilizing. The former navigator believes that the One Ocean Summit is not just for States, which must get involved in the same way as the industrial world, communities and citizens.

“Let’s never forget that one in two breaths is provided by the ocean, because it is the ocean that produces the oxygen we breathe.”

Catherine Chabaud

at franceinfo