The United Nations (UN) Ocean Conference is being considered a success as several countries ratified a key agreement to protect the marine world, and progress was made in the fight against plastic pollution and illegal fishing in the world's seas.
At a conference in Nice, France, representatives from nearly 200 countries gathered to discuss the most pressing problems facing the oceans.
Marine ecosystems are exposed to threats from many sides - from plastic pollution to the consequences of climate change.
Sir David Attenborough said ahead of the conference that he was "appalled" by the damage caused by certain fishing methods and expressed hope that government representatives attending the event would understand "the importance of the ocean to us all."
The main goal of the meeting was to have the Agreement on the Protection of Marine Life on the High Seas ratified by at least 60 countries in order for it to enter into force.
The agreement, signed two years ago, aims to protect 30 percent of the ocean.
The document had been ratified by 13 countries by June 50, and dozens more had pledged to do so by the end of the year.
This and other advances in the fight against plastic pollution and illegal fishing seem to have restored confidence in the ability of states to act together.
"The UN Ocean Conference gave us a glimmer of hope that the problems facing our oceans are being recognized and addressed," said Tony Long, CEO of the international non-profit organization Global Fishing Watch.
"As we approach the entry into force of the High Seas Marine Biodiversity Agreement, governments must redouble their efforts, using transparency and new technologies to protect the oceans," he added.
Before the Nice conference, trust in joint mechanisms for solving world problems was low.
During 2024, key negotiations on protecting biodiversity and combating plastic pollution and climate change failed or ended without significant progress.
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The goal of the conference was not to adopt a new legally binding agreement, but rather to make concrete progress in implementing previously agreed obligations.
Three years ago, countries pledged to protect 2030 percent of land and sea by 30 to preserve biodiversity.
This is difficult to achieve in terms of international waters, as it is not determined under whose control they are.
That is why the Agreement on the Protection of Marine Life on the High Seas was signed in 2023, which envisages declaring 30 percent of international waters as marine protected areas.
Before the start of the conference, the agreement had been ratified by only 27 countries, while its implementation requires ratification by 60 states.
In just a few days, the number has grown to 50, and a dozen more states have announced that they will ratify the document by the end of the year.
The United Kingdom (UK) has stated that it will launch the ratification process before 2026.
This is a record speed of ratification of the UN agreement, said Elizabeth Wilson, director of environmental policy at the non-governmental organization The Pew Trusts.
"We have worked on many international agreements over the years, and the ratification process often takes five or even seven years."
"So the fact that the High Seas Marine Life Agreement is one step away from entering into force really shows that there is momentum towards protecting a larger area of the high seas," she said.
However, major powers such as the United States (US) and China have not yet ratified the agreement, although they are signatories, indicating that they plan to do so in the future.
And Russia, which never supported the agreement due to concerns that it could negatively affect its fishing sector, said on June 13 that it would not change its position.
American diplomats with experience with UN treaties praise the progress made at the Nice conference.
"From progress on the High Seas Marine Conservation Agreement to a marine protected area in French Polynesia, the UN Ocean Conference demonstrated once again that real progress is possible when we act together," said John Kerry, former US Secretary of State and Special Envoy for Climate Change.
Several countries have pledged to declare national waters as marine protected areas and limit the use of the most harmful fishing methods.
The UK has announced that it will seek a ban on trawling (or towing - fishing using a net (trawl), which is dragged along the seabed by one or more ships) in almost a third of England's marine protected areas.
This ban has long been demanded by environmental organizations, and Sir David Attenborough recently made the same request, arguing that without specific bans, "protection" remains just a dead letter.
Also, French Polynesia has launched the protection of the largest marine area in history, within which fishing and seabed mining will be prohibited in as much as 900.000 square kilometers, an area four times the size of the UK.
Thanks to this and other commitments agreed during the conference, 10 percent of the ocean is now protected.
"This sends a message to the world that collective action is key," Astrid Puentes said on BBC Radio 4's Today show on the final day of the conference.
"We need this kind of leadership."
"The ocean is a unique biome on our planet, everything is connected, so we need to strengthen international law," she added.
But making progress in limiting destructive fishing, such as trawling, is difficult to achieve without the participation of China, which has the largest fishing fleet in the world.
However, during the conference, the Chinese government announced that it had ratified the Agreement on Combating Illegal and Unregulated Fishing.
Although French President Emmanuel Macron opened the conference with a stark warning about the dangers of deep-sea mining, countries' positions on the issue remained divided.
Last week, 2.000 scientists appealed to governments to suspend all deep-sea exploration until further scientific research is conducted, given that only 0,001 percent of the seabed has been mapped so far.
Despite this, only 37 countries have accepted the advice and called for a moratorium on deep-sea mining.
“More countries need to call for a moratorium on deep-sea mining to establish a regulatory framework before any mining activities are allowed,” said Pradeep Singh, an environmental lawyer and maritime law expert at the Oceano Azul Foundation.
US President Donald Trump rejected the idea of a common approach in April when he announced that the US administration would begin issuing permits for deep-sea mining.
However, Singh believes that most countries, although not directly calling for a ban, still do not support the American position.
At the final meeting of the conference, countries adopted an Ocean Action Plan, which sets out their commitments.
Although plastic pollution is one of the most serious problems facing the oceans, negotiations in December to reduce the volume of plastic production failed.
Today, it is estimated that there are almost 200 trillion pieces of plastic waste in the oceans, and that this number, if nothing is done, could triple by 2040.
Both the plastic itself and the chemicals it contains pose a threat to the lives of marine animals, said Bethany Carney Almrot, a professor of ecotoxicology at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
"There are more than 16.000 chemicals in plastic, and we know that more than 4.000 of them have hazardous properties, so they can be carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic to the reproductive system," she explained.
At the conference, ministers from 97 countries signed a joint political declaration calling for an ambitious international agreement to combat plastic pollution.
However, only one of the ten largest oil producers is among the signatories - Canada.
Since plastic is made from oil, many oil-rich countries believe that commitments to reduce plastic production would threaten their revenues.
Reducing oil production is also crucial if countries want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate the most severe consequences of climate change.
This affects the oceans the most, as they absorb as much as 90 percent of the additional heat caused by human activity, which causes increasingly destructive marine heat waves.
No new commitments to reduce emissions were made at this conference, but poorer countries put pressure on richer ones to make previously promised funds available to combat climate change as soon as possible.
"I share the frustration of many small island developing states at the lack of response from international financial institutions," said Feleti Teo, Prime Minister of Tuvalu.
"We can't change their policies, but we have to keep up the pressure, and rallies like this give us the opportunity to present our situation."
Watch the trailer for David Attenborough's film "The Ocean"
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