Peter Thomson speaking at Our Ocean Conference in April 2025. Credit: Franz Mahr / OCEANA
 
The Third United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3) will be held in Nice, France, from June 9 to 13, 2025. This event will bring together world leaders, scientists, and stakeholders to discuss the conservation and sustainable use of the oceans. The conference's overarching theme is "Accelerating action and mobilizing all actors to conserve and sustainably use the ocean".

By Peter Thomson
NICE, France, May 21 2025 (IPS)

The United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC) takes place every three years and in just a few weeks, the international community will gather in Nice, France, at a time when the International Science Council has called for the world to address the new reality of a disrupted Earth system.

Research has found that global human health is intrinsically linked to the health of the ocean, but consequences predicted by science are beginning to confront us, with the current global coral bleaching and mortality event being the most intense on record, sea surface temperatures continuing to skyrocket and microplastics found in 60 percent of fish, it is now impossible to ignore that climate change and associated environmental stressors are impacting the ocean system and human wellbeing.

Credit: Pexels – Pixabay

Despite this linkage, UN Sustainable Development Goal 14 (SDG 14), which is meant to support the conservation and sustainable use of ocean resources, remains the least funded of any SDG—receiving just 0.01 percent of all development funding.

UNOC is therefore a crucial moment for the world to come together and take bold action in support of sustainable ocean economies.

Three special events will be held in the days before the conference: the One Ocean Science Congress which will gather the world’s leading ocean scientists to deliberate on the science we need for the ocean we want; the Blue Economy and Finance Forum, which will focus on transformative financing for ocean action; and the third will launch a coalition of cities and coastal communities to advance global and local response to sea level rise.

Climate change has already led to a four-inch rise in sea level since satellite measurement began in 1993 and the UN has calculated that 900 million people living in low-lying coastal areas are going to be placed in acute danger.

All three special event subjects demand concerted international attention in these challenging times.

Thankfully, important work has already begun. In 2022, the world agreed that in order to prevent a massive loss of biodiversity on this planet, we must set about protecting 30% of the planet by 2030 through the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).

In pursuance of that goal, a 30×30 Ocean Action Plan will be presented at UNOC to give attention to new funding models for Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), and with the opportunity to ratify the High Seas Treaty enabling of protected areas in the High Seas.

It is hoped that by the time the Nice conference is underway that the required number of national ratifications of the High Seas Treaty will have been received, thus allowing the treaty to come into force this year.

However, our management of the ocean must be as interconnected as the ocean itself—the 100% Alliance, is a crucial opportunity where countries commit to sustainably manage 100% of their national waters through evidence-based Sustainable Ocean Plans. By joining this initiative, countries can show their ambition and commitment to a more sustainably productive and prosperous ocean economy that benefits both people and nature.

The Alliance’s comprehensive management approach, coupled with the 30×30 goal, will ensure that new MPAs are not only established, but are effectively managed and financed as part of an integrated ocean stewardship agenda.

Meanwhile, a commitment to science-based sustainable management of fish-stocks must extend to the cessation of harmful fisheries subsidies. The latter are largely enjoyed by industrial fishing fleets, busy depleting the ocean of its declining resources.

At the WTO in Geneva the necessary agreement to end harmful subsidies is very close to reality, with the salutary effect of the UN Ocean Conference likely to facilitate the desired WTO consensus.

The conference will work towards the curtailment of marine pollution and will in tandem be urging the attainment this year of a robust, internationally-binding plastics treaty. In this task we must not stumble, for agreement on the proposed treaty is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to control plastic production and pollution.

There is no doubt that control is required, for it is estimated that somewhere between one and three million tonnes of microplastics enter the ocean in a year.

Scientific evidence is clear that these particles can absorb and accumulate toxic pollutants, and that they can cross biological barriers, posing risks to the health of oceanic food webs. I emphasise the word health, for emerging evidence of the harm being done to humans by the unregulated chemicals present in many plastics, is of growing concern to us all.

At the conclusion of the 10th Our Ocean Conference (OOC) in Busan, Korea, at the end of April, it was announced that the annual meetings have generated $160 billion over the past decade in voluntary commitments to improve the ocean. An important achievement in mobilizing the necessary finance, but a much greater global ambition is required to address the urgent challenges.

As we prepare for the 3rd UN Ocean Conference may we all dedicate ourselves to the true course set by multilateralism and the observance of international law. Without further delay, may we commit ourselves to a just transition to net zero, to an equitably electrified world powered by renewable energy.

Let us find hope in progress and allow reason and innovation to overcome the mounting challenges ahead. Let us take the tide while it serves, and through faithful implementation of SDG14, may we bequeath a healthy ocean to our children and grandchildren.

IPS UN Bureau

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By Peter Thomson
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 11 2017 (IPS)

Taken together, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, provide humanity with a masterplan for a sustainable way of life on this planet.

Peter Thomson

We set the bar high with the Agenda because conditions, both today’s and those to come, demand that we do so. Thus the goals we have set ourselves present enormous challenges and require of us huge transformations of systems and behavior.

Their realization demands political foresight, collaboration and the deployment of resources, expertise and technology on a scale that has perhaps never before been seen. But we do have these qualities and resources. Potentially, we have reserves of them sufficient to well exceed the goals before us. Thus it is a matter of deployment, of marshalling our forces, both morally and practically, to undertake the tasks at hand in a spirit of inclusivity and universality.

In these early years of the 2030 Agenda, it is essential that we generate an unstoppable momentum towards the way stations of 2020 and 2025, and ultimately on to our 2030 destination. In November last year, I presented to you my PGA plan to generate such momentum. As you know, I assembled a high-quality team of SDG experts within my office, supported by Chef de Cabinet, Ambassador Tomas Anker Christensen, my Special Adviser on SDGs, Ambassador Dessima Williams, and the PGA’s Special Envoy on SDGs and Climate Change, Ambassador Macharia Kamau, to help me implement that plan.

Over the course of the last twelve months, we have pursued activities to bring progress to each of the 17 SDGs. This work has been captured in the report prepared for today’s meeting, a copy of which should now be with you.

I will summarize a sample of those activities now, by talking to three main streams of work.

The first work-stream relates to SDG Advocacy.

In order to keep the SDGs at the top of the global agenda, my office travelled to 32 countries across every region of the world. This was a time-consuming exercise, and I particularly want to thank Ambassadors Kamau and Williams for putting in the hard yards attained. From COP22 in Morocco to Habitat III in Ecuador; from the World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland and the OECD in France; from the African Union in Ethiopia to the European Union in Belgium, to the Belt and Road Forum in China and to the SIDS Symposium in the Bahamas, we were present at the forefront.

We visited the UN Offices in Bangkok, Nairobi, Vienna, Rome and Geneva to convene with them on the Sustainable Development Goals. On each occasion, we drove home our key 2030 Agenda messages, urging all actors to get on board the SDG train, to get the wheels of implementation turning, and to join the journey to a better world by 2030.

During the 71st session, we placed particular focus on engaging young people, believing them to be the most effective agents of transformation given the importance of the 2030 Agenda to their lives. We met with groups of young people at every given opportunity and I wrote to every Head of State and Government encouraging them to incorporate the SDGs into national school curricula, making a similar request to the heads of over 4,000 universities.

In addition, we strove to bring the attention of the global public to the SDGs. As part of this effort, we organized a series of SDG Media Zones to allow the global social media community to engage with leaders and speakers at the High Level Week in September and other High Level Meetings. All this to burn the candle of enlightenment better and brighter.

The second work-stream has focussed on generating collaboration across a range of SDGs.

Here, we convened a host of meetings in New York and elsewhere. You will recall the five SDG Action Events convened during the resumed session. Cognizant of the busy GA, ECOSOC and Security Council schedules, many of these action events were organized back to back with other meetings.

The first of them was held in January; when in keeping with the Secretary-General’s focus on prevention and in advance of next year’s High Level Meeting on Sustaining Peace, we looked closely at the links between the 2030 Agenda and the concept of Sustaining Peace. We emerged from that day with the mantra, ‘There can be no sustainable development without sustaining peace, and no sustaining peace without sustainable development.’

In March, we held a meeting with UNFCCC on the SDGs and Climate Change. It was hugely reassuring to observe at this meeting that the great mass of humanity, along with the governments that lead us, are united behind the Paris Agreement. The meeting made clear that proactive Climate action will have direct positive impacts across all of the SDGs, with a lack of Climate action having the opposite effect.

In April, with a view to identifying the steps required to unlock the massive resources required by the 2030 Agenda from international private finance, we held an SDG Financing Lab. This event illustrated how different goals require different sources of finances; how action must be taken to bring key financial stakeholders together on a UN platform to get investments flowing; and how the financial system must be aligned with the SDGs in order to facilitate the financing of the Goals.

In May, we held a memorable meeting on Innovation, kick-starting a reflection on how the UN system and Member States alike can embrace innovation for the benefit of SDG progress. We concluded that the fourth industrial revolution will be a boon to the 2030 Agenda, but that we must manage both the benefits and the risks associated with exponential technological change.

As we engaged with both the worlds of finance and technology during the 71st session, it became clear to us that there is a strong demand from outside the UN for a port of call, a docking station at the UN, for partnerships to be structured in support of the implementation of the SDGs.

And then in June, to bring a fresh spirit of collaboration and action to one of the most crucial SDGs, we held the SDG Action Event on Education and SDG 4. The meeting brought together key stakeholders to discuss what it will take to realize the Education Goal, looking at financing needs, at empowering youth, at education in humanitarian and emergency settings as well as at education for sustainable development, and at how connectivity and exponential technology advances can transform the way we educate for progress.

Finally, there was The Ocean Conference, held in support of the implementation of SDG14. Working with the Co-Chairs, Fiji and Sweden, with DESA, OLA, DOALOS, UNDP, UNEP, FAO, IOC and the entire UN membership, agencies and programmes, we raised global consciousness on the plight of the Ocean and produced a huge work plan of solutions from the congregation of world expertise assembled. The conference generated almost 1400 voluntary commitments for Ocean action and a global community of actors now committed to working with us in reversing the cycle of decline in which the Ocean has been currently caught.

I am very proud of what The Ocean Conference achieved. Ahead lies the implementation of the work plan, with the necessary discipline of the proposed 2020 UN Ocean Conference to work towards in support of SDG14.

The third work-stream has been the implementation of SDG-related mandates within the General Assembly.

Here, resolutions were passed on key issues like the Technology Bank for LDCs, and the Global SDG Indicator Framework. Lengthy consultations were conducted on the alignment of the GA Agenda with the SDGs, and important GA meetings were held on the UN’s response to individual SDGs such as those relating to biodiversity, water and urbanization. During the session, we advanced preparations for major meetings on SDG-related matters including migration, human trafficking, and South-South cooperation.

Having analyzed and reflected on what we have busied ourselves with during the 71st session, I draw a few key conclusions that I would like to share with you.

First, I believe that together we have generated momentum across the SDGs. Through our advocacy efforts, the New York element of the 2030 Agenda has been properly applied to ensuring the SDGs are at the forefront of the global agenda. Through our SDG action events, we have brought new actors to the table and encouraged those already involved to collaborate more actively with others. And through our work here at the General Assembly, we have strengthened the overall architecture for implementing and following up on the SDGs, and broadened global awareness of the SDGs.

Second, based on our experience and on all of the above-mentioned efforts and more, the outlook for SDG implementation is positive.

Headway is being made in many key areas, as captured in this year’s UN SDG Progress Report. Governments have made great strides in incorporating the SDGs into their national development plans, as was further evidenced by the strong interest in voluntary national reviews at this year’s HLPF.

Meanwhile it is heartening to see the business sector becoming increasingly aware of the SDGs and expressing a desire to play an active part in their implementation. Progressive actors in the financial world see that the future is green and that the 2030 Agenda presents incredible investment opportunities.

An army of innovators are at their keyboards and in their labs ready to unleash their ideas and new technologies to support the SDGs. And civil society actors, many of whom helped us to conceive this masterplan, are ready to push us forward day in day out.

Here at the UN in New York we see positive signs. The High Level Political Forum is growing in strength year on year. The appointments of Secretary General Guterres; of DSG Mohammed; of UNDP Administrator Steiner; and of UN DESA’s Mr Liu and many more, means that the UN has recruited an inspiring team to lead the charge of the 2030 Agenda.

The Secretary General’s report on the UN System that was released in July demonstrates his resolve to do what is needed to ensure the UN is fit to discharge its mandates to best effect and to better support Member States in realizing the SDGs. In this regard, I urge Member States to get behind the Secretary General’s efforts, to look beyond the pain of short-term changes and embrace the systemic shift needed to move us closer to the achievement of our universal goals.

My third conclusion is not yet an alarm bell, more in the nature of an early morning wake-up call. Two years after the momentous adoption of the 2030 Agenda, implementation is not yet moving at the speed or scale required to meet our ambitious goals.

Progress on individual goals is at best uneven, as evidenced on the ground where it matters most. This mixed picture is reflected across regions, between the sexes, and among people of different ages, wealth and locales, including urban and rural dwellers. Thus a much greater focus on leaving no one behind, on empowering women and girls, young people and vulnerable groups is asked of us at all levels.

UN DPI, the SDG Action Campaign and Project Everyone are diligently performing their respective roles in bringing the SDGs to the people. But popular awareness of the SDGs at individual and community levels across the world remains far too low. This is a serious flaw, for without knowledge of the rights and responsibilities inherent in the SDGs, people are not directly motivated to work on the transformations of thought and action the 2030 Agenda requires.

To correct this, further emphasis is needed in national plans and policies – be they in the global North or South – to better promote the central demands of the 2030 Agenda. These should include a focus on inclusion; an integrated approach across the three dimensions of sustainable development; and an emphasis on participation, transparency and accountability.

As indicated in the Secretary-General’s report, big gaps also exist in the UN’s current approach, particularly in the areas of partnership, finance, data and innovation.

More broadly, it is clear that we have yet to see the levels of collaboration and collective action that helped governments make major inroads on the MDGs. There is clearly a need for a more systematic approach to SDG partnerships and collective action across the range of SDGs and the UN has a critical role to play in making this so. The Ocean Conference demonstrated the power of bringing together a wide-range of actors to support the implementation of a particular SDG, and this model can be replicated elsewhere.

Similarly, we have yet to witness the dramatic shift in financing and global economic policy that is necessary to align the financial system with the SDGs. The Addis Ababa Action Agenda must be implemented, say it loud and say it clear. A shift away from unsustainable investments and a surge of private investment into developing countries, particularly in areas such as energy and infrastructure, is urgent business at hand. We need to see a significant increase in development assistance; a dramatic improvement in global tax cooperation; and meaningful review of macroeconomic policies to align them with the SDG’s focus on inclusion and sustainability. The UN has a more proactive role to play in promoting these issues, given its status as a trusted convener.

In conclusion, the UN needs to build a capacity, a docking station capacity, to convene, engage and create coalitions for collective action across the Means of Implementation, be it partnerships with the private sector, harnessing the potential of exponential technological change or convening the titans of public and private finance to support achieving the SDGs.

During the 71st session, we tried to leave no stone unturned in the search for SDG momentum.

I want to thank you, the Member States, for your support and good advice throughout. For those among you who at my request took on onerous roles of facilitation and chairmanship, I applaud you here in front of your peers. I congratulate the Secretary-General and Deputy Secretary-General for grasping the baton of responsibility and leadership without breaking stride.

I thank UN DESA and many other parts of the Secretariat, especially those in the field in the service of the UN system, for putting their shoulders to the wheel; likewise, the wonderful team at the Office of the President of the General Assembly for doing all that was possible to keep us moving forward on the 2030 Agenda.

As you begin your preparations for the High-level week of the 72ndsession, I urge you to give this message to your capitals: we have achieved momentum on the SDGs, but there can be no rest. To get to the promise of the 2030 Agenda, we now need a shift in gears. It is time to crank it up a notch, for time is not on our side.

The message should also be that we find ways to collaborate better with non-governmental actors. Partnerships at times may involve risks, but if we partner right and partner strong, the rewards far outweigh them. And the message should include strong support for the Secretary-General in bringing forward his reforms of the UN System, so that we are in best possible shape to help others along the journey to 2030.

We have the resources, the ideas, the technology and the motivation. Add leadership, courage and an unwavering commitment to progress and we will reach our 2030 destination with goals fulfilled. As I have said many times, together we are strong.

When it comes to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, we succeed or fail together, for we are addressing the sustainability of our planetary ecosystem, the integrity of our global economic system, and the equity of humanity. We will not fail because we love our grandchildren. We will succeed because we have not come this far only to be defeated by greed.

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By Peter Thomson
STOCKHOLM, Aug 28 2017 (IPS)

It is a great pleasure to join you today at World Water Week and to be here in Stockholm. This city has been at the forefront of sustainable development since it hosted the first Earth Summit back in 1972, the same year I started my public service as a rural development officer in Fiji!

Coming from Fiji, the subject of water has always been an absorbing one for me. For much of my life, the water I drank came from the rainwater caught in tanks from our roof. And back in the seventies, working as a District Officer in rural Fiji, one of my main preoccupations was installing locally-sourced piped water supplies to the villages of my districts.

Coupled with that work, was the installation of water-seal latrines in the same villages. I learnt early in life that adequate fresh water and sanitation facilities were vital to healthy lives, education, gender equality, and most other aspects of sustainable development.

With all the good work done in the intervening decades, it would have been reasonable to imagine that the challenges of access to clean and safe drinking water and adequate sanitation would by now be behind us. Sadly, that is not the case.

Almost 2.4 billion people still have no access to improved sanitation. And a growing number of regions and countries are experiencing rising water stress, exacerbated by rapid population growth, urbanization and of course climate change.

Peter Thomson, President of the UN General Assembly

As you know, water and sanitation have a central place amongst the 17 Sustainable Development Goals which were universally adopted by the 193 nations of the United Nations in September 2015. Together with the Paris Climate Agreement, implementation of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals represents the best chance our species has to achieve a sustainable way of life on Planet Earth before it is too late.

In this context, I believe that SDG 6, the Water and Sanitation Goal, is in need of a major push. The time is right, thus I encourage you all to join together to develop concerted global action to deliver on the targets of SDG 6.

Creating a global movement to deliver on the targets of SDG 14 – the Ocean Goal – was exactly what we sought to achieve when The Ocean Conference was held in New York last June. The Governments of Sweden and Fiji came together to obtain a UN mandate for the conference and then worked in a solid partnership to arrange and co-host the conference. Here in Stockholm, I want to again pay tribute to Minister Isabella Lövin for her determination to make the conference the great success it was.

From the outset, The Ocean Conference was designed to be the game changer in reversing the cycle of decline in which Ocean’s health had been caught. Without a doubt, the conference succeeded in dramatically raising global consciousness on marine pollution, especially plastic pollution, Ocean acidification, Ocean warming, overfishing, High Seas governance and damage to biodiversity and ecosystems.

It was a solutions-focused global event, characterized by inclusivity and common purpose. Thousands of participants attended the conference, including Heads of State and Government, high-level representatives from Governments, the United Nations system, intergovernmental organizations, as well as civil society, the scientific community, the business sector and other relevant stakeholders. From them came a call for urgent action on behalf of the Ocean as captured in the three main outcomes of the conference.

Firstly, UN Member States produced an ambitious political declaration “Our Ocean, Our Future: Call for Action”. Spelling out the priority actions the world must take to save the Ocean, the declaration provided the necessary convergence of political will by world leaders and has given us all the mandate to act.

Secondly, seven inclusive partnership dialogues heard the problems of the Ocean from the best of world expertise and innovative solutions were presented as the way forward by those assembled.

And thirdly, nearly 1400 voluntary commitments were pledged by a broad range of stakeholders, including governments and civil society, aimed at advancing the implementation of the targets of SDG14.

The ultimate value of The Ocean Conference lies in the degree to which we implement the called-for action. To ensure implementation we need a common work plan, a dedicated set of actors and achievable targets.

The work plan is currently being formulated, with the United Nations analyzing and modeling the many outcomes of the conference. At the same time, the relevant actors are being organized for the task ahead. The targets already exist in the form of SDG14, with three of the goal’s targets set to mature in 2020.

In the meantime, the Governments of Portugal and Kenya have offered to host a second UN Ocean Conference in 2020, thereby giving us three years for our common work plan to be acted upon. When we gather again in 2020, we will have the opportunity to comprehensively assess our successes and failures in the implementation of SDG14, so that we can make the necessary adjustments and march on to fulfillment of SDG14 by its maturation date in 2030.

The great human endeavor of implementing the work necessary to achieve the targets of SDG14 is underway. We must never forget that when it comes to the environment, everything is connected. It makes no sense to consider terrestrial environmental issues, fresh water challenges or climate change in isolation as they are all part of the planetary ecosystem, with one affecting the other under the immutable laws of nature. Thus we must always take an inclusive, integrated approach, never falling back into the failing silos of past status quos.

Having said that, we are all called upon to put our skills, ideas and energies to where our particular skills lie. We all have something to bring to the work ahead. So if you are a sanitation engineer, it is expected that you will be working to improve humanity’s sanitation challenges; whereas if you are a coral reef scientist, we expect that you will be advancing knowledge in that field.

But of course none should imagine that the state of sanitation and coral reefs are anything but directly connected. I commend World Water Week for bringing us together to discuss the challenges of our time and to appreciate our interconnectedness. I look forward to these discussions and for the action that will arise from the week’s outcomes.

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