One Ocean Summit: an international summit to take action together

One observation: the ocean covers more than 70% of the surface of our planet, yet “too often remains on the sidelines of international events dedicated to the climate and biodiversity”. As the Ministry in charge of foreign affairs explained in its presentation of the event, it was time to organise a summit to “raise the level of ambition of the international community on marine issues”. Because the Ocean is today “threatened by many pressures such as the effects of climate change, pollution, in particular from plastics, and over-exploitation of marine resources”.

An event of unprecedented scale

One objective: to better anticipate “the ocean crisis and technologic, scientific and environmental changes through the sharing of knowledge”. These are some of the goals for the international ocean summit, according to the government information website commenting the event.

So for three days, the best ocean specialists are gathered to identify tangible actions to initiate in order to protect and restore marine ecosystems. Indeed, the One Ocean Summit in Brest reached “an unprecedented scale, gathering hundreds of stakeholders from all over the world to better cooperate and act”. And when expert works ended, exchanges allowed to bring “concerted and tangible responses” to various ocean challenges the planet is facing.

A summit of commitments

Commitments: The One Ocean Summit “will be the summit of commitments”, as French president Macron said in his foreword to the press release of the Summit. In the morning of 11 February, Macron gathered heads of State and foreign governments, heads of multilateral institutions and policymakers to take “ambitious commitments”.

In the final release “Brest commitments for the Ocean”, the Presidency underlined that decisionmakers gathered in Brest “are aware that the place of the Ocean in the international political agenda is today neither at the level of its role in climate, environmental and social balances of the planet, nor at the level of the threats pressuring marine life, and they committed to collectively, quickly and concretely work to put an end to the degradation of the Ocean”.

Areas of priority

Priorities: the countries represented during the One Ocean Summit have defined the first areas of actions and “chose to act for the preservation of biodiversity, the cessation of the over-exploitation of marine resources, the fight against pollution and the mitigation of climate change”. Several important and priority initiatives are part of the final release:

• protect the biodiversity of marine ecosystems, with the creation new protected areas;
• preserve the ocean resources through the promotion of sustainable fishing and the fight against illegal fishing, with the ratification of new agreements;
• unite all forces present to adapt the responses to the effects of climate change, including through the creation of a new Green Marine Europe label;
• end plastic pollution in the Oceans, through massive investments to level infrastructures of sanitation and waste treatment on all continents, but also “the transition towards a circular economy targeting 100% reuse or recycling of plastic material and the renouncement of single-use uses”;
• place the Ocean at the heart of the international political agenda and define a common policy for a better governance of oceans, for example through the creation of a “digital twin of the ocean” to model, gather knowledge and test action scenarios “at the service of the European blue growth and global governance”.

A series of international meetings

Dates: the “Brest commitments” are indeed “a first step through which we force ourselves to regenerate this extraordinary and fragile ocean life”, as announced the French president in his presentation of the Summit.

The works of the One Ocean Summit are the starting point of a series of international events in which the Ocean will have a central place, with the Conference of the United Nations on the Ocean planned in June in Lisbon, and the COP27 organised in Egypt in Autumn 2022. In addition, “to confirm this momentum and build an ambitious oceanic international agenda”, France and Costa Rica offered to co-organise in 2024 the next conference of the United Nations on the Ocean.