With the 3rd UN Ocean Conference (UNOC3) set to take place June 9-13 in Nice, and co-chaired by France and Costa Rica, Europe’s environmental leadership is under the spotlight. The EU has made ambitious pledges on ocean protection, but its progress on ratifying the landmark High Seas Treaty has been slow. So far, only a handful of member states have signed on, threatening to hinder progress on a landmark agreement for ocean protection.

By Pascal Lamy and Geneviève Pons
PARIS / BRUSSELS , May 9 2025 (IPS)

If one so wished, it would be entirely possible to spend a lifetime travelling from one international environmental conference to the next, without ever returning home. But the relentless pace of these meetings does not always translate into equally rapid action.

Instead, the result is often painfully slow progress, watered down commitments and timelines that can stretch into years if not decades. Public frustration is mounting, tired of broken promises. It wants action to tackle the climate and biodiversity crises before it is too late.

In this void of global environmental leadership, the European Union has an opportunity to step up on the stewardship of our planet’s greatest shared resource: the ocean.

Credit: Josh Sorenson

The ocean is Earth’s life support system. It covers over 70% of our planet, regulates the climate by absorbing carbon dioxide, produces at least half of the oxygen we breathe, sustains millions of livelihoods, provides food for billions, and holds mysteries we’ve only just begun to uncover.

Yet, despite its fundamental role in planetary health and human survival, the ocean remains under constant assault from climate change, pollution, overfishing, and habitat destruction.

Most alarmingly, vast areas of the ocean — especially the High Seas — remain dangerously under protected.

That is why it is both remarkable and welcome that, as EU Council President Antonio Costa highlighted, all 27 EU Heads of State and Government reached – for the very first time – ambitious conclusions on the ocean at the March 2025 European Council.

Among these was a commitment to swiftly ratify the new High Seas Treaty, a landmark international agreement finalized in 2023 after nearly two decades of negotiations.

This treaty, also known as the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) Agreement, is a cornerstone of marine conservation and was hailed as a major victory for multilateralism. It holds enormous potential to protect marine life in High Seas — the two-thirds of the ocean that lie beyond national borders. But treaties do not protect ecosystems — countries do.

And unless 60 nations ratify the agreement so it can enter into force, its historic potential will remain nothing more than words on paper.

Here, the EU has a chance to lead by example — and by numbers. With its 27 member states, it holds the key to being a game-changer in accelerating the process of entry into force. The EU finalized its ratification in June 2024, but progress among individual member states has lagged.

As of now, only France and Spain have formally deposited their ratification instruments with the United Nations. Several others are close, but the overall momentum is insufficient. In a positive development aimed at facilitating ratification and preparing for implementation, the EU Commission has recently proposed a Directive for transposing the BBNJ Agreement into EU law.

Member states must urgently speed up their national processes to complete their ratification and send a strong signal of global leadership. This urgency and roadmap are outlined in detail in Europe Jacques Delors’ most recent policy brief, which highlights the key institutional, legal, and diplomatic levers available to the EU and its member states.

The stakes could not be higher. 40% of EU citizens live in coastal areas, which contribute around 40% of the EU’s GDP. The EU, together with its overseas territories, also has the largest Exclusive Economic Zone in the world. From economic stability to energy security and food supply, the ocean is inextricably tied to Europe’s prosperity. A degraded ocean means a less secure, less resilient, and less prosperous Europe.

True leadership means more than making bold declarations, it is about delivering results.

This June, the 3rd UN Ocean Conference (UNOC3) will take place on European soil — in Nice. The Conference has been designated as the key political moment to secure the 60 ratifications needed to trigger the Treaty’s entry into force.

Achieving this goal is essential not only to uphold the EU leadership and credibility on ocean governance, but also to meet broader international commitments — including the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework’s goal of protecting 30% of the ocean by 2030 (30×30).

The EU must intensify its ‘blue diplomacy’, leveraging initiatives like the High Ambition Coalition for the High Seas Treaty, which it helped establish, to drive global ratification and implementation efforts of its 52 members. This conference needs to prove that once again environmental multilateralism can still deliver when it matters most.

The EU has set an ambitious course on ocean governance. The imminent launch of the European Ocean Pact, which builds on the foundations laid by the Manifesto for a European Ocean Pact initiated by Europe Jacques Delors and Oceano Azul Foundation, and the recent EU Council conclusions on the Ocean, are strong signals of intent.

With the global order in flux and geopolitical alliances shifting rapidly, the EU must work together and embrace its role as both a stabilizing force and a champion of the ocean. Delivering on the High Seas Treaty — through swift ratification, diligent preparation for implementation, and the establishment of a robust governance framework — will be a defining moment for the EU. It is a test of its credibility, leadership, and vision for the future.

The world is watching. The ocean is waiting. And the clock is ticking.

Pascal Lamy is the Vice-President of Europe Jacques Delors and former Director-General of the WTO. Geneviève Pons is the Vice-President and Director General of Europe Jacques Delors and a leading advocate for ocean conservation.

IPS UN Bureau

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Penguins gather on the Antarctic Peninsula. Credit: Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition (ASOC).
 
According to a UN press release, the Sixteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 16) will take place October 21-November 1, in Cali, Colombia. Parties to the Convention will review the state of implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted last year at COP15. More information here. It will be broadcast live on UN Web TV.

By Pascal Lamy and Geneviève Pons
CALI, Colombia, Oct 21 2024 (IPS)

COP16, the much-anticipated follow-up talks to the 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) agreement, which aims to reverse an alarming loss of nature on land and sea, opens in Cali, Colombia.

Sometimes described as the “Paris Agreement for nature”, this legal framework agreed under the Chinese Presidency of the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity’s 15th COP, calls on the international community to reverse the biodiversity crisis, including by protecting 30 percent of the world’s land and 30 percent of its marine areas by 2030.

But, two years later, the world remains alarmingly off track. In the marine realm, for example, only 8.35 percent of the world’s ocean is currently protected. It is inconceivable that the 30X30 commitment will be met without a rapid expansion of protections in the high seas and Southern Ocean, which encompass nearly two-thirds of the global ocean.

Now time is running out.

A new report from the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition (ASOC) highlights how record heat waves and sea ice loss, driven by climate change, are reshaping the frozen continent and the waters surrounding it.

Such impacts are particularly alarming because research has shown that the Southern Ocean helps to stabilize the global climate by circulating cold water and nutrients to higher latitudes in a process known as the carbon pump. Its krill populations alone—with schools large enough to be seen from space—may store over 20 million tons of carbon annually, equivalent to taking 35 million cars off the road.

The problems in the Southern Ocean have been compounded in recent years by a rise in tourism, plastic pollution, and industrial-scale fishing in a place that not long ago was largely inaccessible to human activity.

Fortunately, study after study have shown that marine protected areas (MPAs) are one of the best ways for vulnerable ecosystems to build resilience as they adapt to new and increasing ecological pressures, and continue to provide the ecosystemic services humanity needs.

Additionally, talks over the fate of proposals to create four new MPAs in the Southern Ocean are now entering their final days at the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) in Hobart, Australia. CCAMLR, established in 1982, is the only representative body with the mandate to designate these MPAs by consensus.

The Commission already demonstrated global leadership in science-based marine resource management and committed to create a representative network of MPAs in the Southern Ocean in 2009. It took time, but despite political differences, in 2016, the body created the world’s largest marine protected area in the Ross Sea, which now serves as a vital refuge for krill, fish, whales, and birds.

The Ross Sea Region MPA also demonstrated a willingness by the international community to put aside its differences for the sake of conservation and scientific discovery in the world’s last wilderness. Moreover, leaders at the most recent Group of 20 meeting, called on all nations with a stake in Antarctica to complete the approval process for a robust system of MPAs in the region.

Now, the commission’s members are considering four scientifically robust MPAs: Weddell Sea Phase 1 MPA, East Antarctic MPA, Domain 1 (Antarctic Peninsula) MPA, and Weddell Sea Phase 2 MPA. If all four MPA proposals are agreed, with existing protections, it will protect 26 percent of the Southern Ocean and nearly 3 percent of the global ocean.

This would be the largest act of ocean conservation in history and make a major contribution toward achieving 30×30.

The coalition of champions Antarctica2030, which we co-chair, is fully aligned with this objective, supporting every effort to ensure the protection of these critical marine areas and to help meet the global 30×30 target.

It hasn’t been easy, but time and again nations have shown we can find solutions that support our mutual political and environmental interests, even when we have other, significant differences.

Now CCAMLR nations, including China, have a rare opportunity to meet their international obligations and take a leadership role, potentially making the Southern Ocean the first large ecosystem in the world where the 30×30 objective is attained.

Geneviève Pons is the co-chair of Antarctica2030 and CEO of Europe Jacques Delors; Pascal Lamy is the co-chair of Antarctica2030 and Vice-President of the Paris Peace Forum.

IPS UN Bureau

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