In a speech of more than 20 minutes, the French head of state reiterated the idea that while some countries seek to explore Mars, Europe should focus on Neptune as “the good adventure that will allow you to mobilize researchers”
The French president defended European responsibility to bet on science to protect the oceans at a time when the United States is cutting the funding of scientific research with the word biodiversity.
“There is no more American financing when these words [biodiversidade] arise in a research program. That is why we have a European (…) responsibility to truly maintain the financing of a free academic investigation for the common good, ”said Emmanuel Macron at the SOS Ocean initiative ceremony, which ended Monday in Paris.
In a speech of more than 20 minutes, the French head of state reiterated the idea that while some countries seek to explore Mars, Europe should focus on Neptune as “the good adventure that will allow researchers to mobilize.”
According to Macron, Mars can “believe there is a substitution planet, but there is no planet B”, so it is necessary to make the earth a habitable planet.
At an event organized by the French Republic and the Blue Ocean Foundation to prepare the third United Nations Ocean Conference (Unoc3), which takes place in Nice, the French president presented the eight goals he set for this high level meeting.
The eighth goal is precisely the defense of science, Macron said, noting that before Unoc3 will take place, between June 3 and 6, the scientific congress an ocean, for which all scientific institutions will be mobilized.
In total, this congress will bring together two thousand scientists representing a hundred countries.
The first of the eight goals set by Macron for Unoc3 is ratification by at least 60 countries from the high sea treaty, which intends to protect the part of the ocean that does not belong to any country.
“It is 64% of the surface of the global ocean, more than half of the planet’s surface, and this ocean cannot be a right area,” he said.
He added that 110 states have already signed the treaty, but only 21 have ratified it, so “there is a lot of work to do” to handle the 60 that allows the diploma to be in force.
The second is to have sustainable fishing, namely advancing in the fight against illegal, unlawful and unlavod fishing, which represents between 10 and 20% of fish production, which is “evidently unacceptable,” he said.
The third goal is to continue to work to protect 30% of the oceans by 2030, a goal defined in 2022 by the global kunming-Montreal biodiversity framework, but is still far from achieving.
“We are today in 8.5%. We appeal to countries that announce in Nice new protected marine areas. We set the goal of reaching 12% protection from exclusive economic zones, perhaps 15% until Unoc3,” he said.
The fourth goal is to decarbonize maritime transport and the fifth fight against plastic pollution, expecting Macron that Unoc3 gives a boost for the issue to be the target of an agreement in August in Geneva.
Macron’s sixth goal for Nice is the mobilization of new financing, including philanthropic, to build a sustainable blue economy and a large forum in Monaco that will combine the finance world to the Blue Economy will be gathered, Macron said.
