Bad news for followers of collapsology and other catastrophists about the fate of the planet: hope is not dead.
He showed up again recently, this time at the United Nations headquarters in New York. This is where, recently, all the member states of the organization succeeded in concluding a historic agreement for the protection of the high seas.
We haven’t talked about it much, because we tend to focus more on things that go wrong and other bad news, but let us point this out, because it’s important.
We are talking here about a collective effort, unprecedented and crucial, aimed at avoiding losing the sea.
Our oceans are now facing existential threats, as the dramatic drop in biodiversity bears witness to.
A country like ours, which has the longest coastline in the world, has a front row seat to witness this tragedy. Not being part of the solution would have been terribly embarrassing.
In clear terms, the member countries of the UN have just agreed on a legally binding mechanism which, in the long term, will make it possible to better protect the high seas.
We are finally showing our teeth to protect the oceans.
This means that we have just given ourselves the means to achieve one of the two major objectives set at the UN conference on biodiversity (COP15) which was held in Montreal last December – and which was also considered as a success.
In particular, it was agreed that 30% of the planet’s maritime environments should become protected natural areas by 2030. Currently, a meager 1% of these waters are protected.
The specific measures remain to be defined, but they must ensure the protection of the biological diversity of the designated ecosystems.
The agreement reached in New York, for its part, is the culmination of 15 years of discussions. When it comes into force, it will allow the protection of areas that are located 370 kilometers off the coast.
PHOTO YUKI IWAMURA, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
United Nations Conference during which all the member states of the organization worked on an agreement for the protection of the high seas, in New York, last February
“This is the most important conservation agreement in history,” explained the head of the Oceans and Plastics Campaign for Greenpeace Canada.
Before this treaty, there was no legal tool or set of tools that would have allowed us to adequately protect the high seas, which represents two-thirds of the ocean and half of the planet.
Greenpeace Canada Oceans and Plastics Campaigner
That said, as important as this agreement is, it does not mean that protecting 30% of the oceans will be easy.
First, the agreement must be ratified.
Canada should move quickly, to lead by example, and then help to speed up the process. That is to say, to ensure that other countries imitate it very quickly.
Then comes the fundamental step of creating protected areas and a monitoring mechanism.
There is a long way from the cut to the lips, therefore. Nevertheless, the progress that has just been made is undeniable.
In terms of protecting the oceans – which in itself is a feat because they are generally in our blind spot – but not only.
The spokesman for the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, called the agreement a “victory for multilateralism”. He’s not wrong.
Because the agreement also shows us that on very controversial environmental issues such as the protection of the high seas, the governments of the planet can put aside their differences and find common ground.
This is probably a good sign, in the short term, for the negotiation of an international treaty against plastic pollution.
There is therefore, in the very essence of this new agreement, a glimmer of hope.
And glimmers like this, as we struggle to meet the climate challenge, would be wrong to ignore. Let us rather rejoice in it and be inspired by it.