(PALAU) – The EU at a conference renewed its pledges towards international ocean governance, presenting a list of 44 commitments for the 2020-2022 period for an amount of almost EUR 1 billion.
The Our Ocean Conference is seen as a key moment for countries across the world, civil society, and industry to commit to concrete and significant actions to protect the ocean. The theme of 2022 edition is Our Ocean, Our People, Our Prosperity’, and it draws global partners to identify solutions to sustainably manage marine resources, increase the ocean’s resilience to climate change and safeguard its health for generations to come.
At the conference, the EU took commitments covering all the themes of this international event: marine protected areas; tackling marine pollution; confronting the ocean-climate crisis; creating sustainable blue economies; advancing sustainable small-scale fisheries and aquaculture; and achieving a safe, just and secure ocean. The EU has also developed a commitment tracking tool to allow citizens to follow the progress of the implementation of the commitments.
The EU says it is conscious of the challenges facing the ocean and has put a strong focus this year for protecting and restoring it, for example by contributing to initiatives such as the One Ocean Summit (in February, Brest) and the forthcoming UN Ocean Conference (in June-July, Lisbon). The EU is also currently updating its International Ocean Governance Agenda to take into account in a comprehensive way ocean challenges and recent developments, but also opportunities presented by the European Green Deal.
The EU remains fully engaged in the Our Ocean process, and stands ready to assume its responsibility in relation to international ocean governance as a firm supporter of multilateralism.
At the conference, Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius, underlined the importance of the role the ocean plays for “our very existence”: “It provides us clean air, regulates the climate, hosts a large part of biodiversity on Earth and is key for our economy. The ocean is bringing all these benefits to us and we need to protect it. Our future depends upon it., he said.
