“We close this historic week not just with hope, but with concrete commitment, clear direction, and undeniable momentum,” Li Junhua, the UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs and Secretary-General of the summit, told reporters. Co-hosted by France and Costa Rica, the five-day event brought 15,000 participants, including more than...
With the conference, known as UNOC3, set to close Friday, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Li Junhua, the UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, told UN News on Thursday that the past four days have been marked by a rare sense of solidarity around Sustainable Development Goal 14 (SDG...
In the old town of Nice, the 98-meter-long, three-masted barque arrived last week at Port Lympia, where UNOC3 is now under way. Built in 1914 and owned by Norway since 1921, the Statsraad Lehmkuhl – named for former Norwegian minister Kristofer Lehmkuhl – was refitted last year with state-of-the-art ocean...
“The ocean is the ultimate shared resource,” he told delegates gathered at the port of Nice. “But we are failing it.” Oceans, he warned, are absorbing 90 per cent of the excess heat from greenhouse gas emissions and buckling under the strain: overfishing, rising temperatures, plastic pollution, acidification. Coral reefs...
On a sun-drenched morning off the coast of Villefranche-sur-Mer, the Sagitta III cuts through the cobalt waters of the Mediterranean, past the quiet marinas and pine-fringed terraces of France’s Côte d’Azur. The 40-foot scientific vessel – named after a fearsome zooplankton with hook-lined jaws – rumbles toward a lonely yellow...
The urgent need to restore the Ocean will be the focus of a major international conference taking place in Nice, France, this June. This will be the first UN Ocean Conference since the adoption of a legal agreement for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity and the protection...
Tom Fletcher said in a statement on Monday that nine UN trucks were cleared to enter the southern Kerem Shalom crossing earlier in the day. “But it is a drop in the ocean of what is urgently needed…We have been reassured that our work will be facilitated through existing, proven...
On Boxing Day – 26 December 2004, a 9.1-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia, unleashing a massive tsunami that swept across the Indian Ocean. Waves as high as 51 meters (167 feet) inundated communities in Aceh, Indonesia, with flooding extending up to five kilometres (three miles) inland. The...
A man fishes with seine nets in Quang Ngai province, Viet Nam. The goal is to improve “ocean literacy”, according to the UN Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea of the Office of Legal Affairs (DOALOS), who organized the event. Coupled with information on ocean health...
That’s according to the UN Trade and Development body UNCTAD’s Trade and Environment Review 2023, published on Monday, which analyses the world’s $3-6 billion ocean economy, and assesses how human activity and multiple global crises have significantly impacted sectors like fishing, seafood, shipping and coastal tourism. The report, presented at the 3rd UN...
“And by working as one, it’s a race we can win. Let’s all become the champions the ocean needs. Let’s end the ocean emergency and preserve this precious blue gift for our children and grandchildren,” urged the UN chief. The Secretary-General was speaking from the Ocean Science Centre Mindelo, in...
The answer goes back to 2015, when the national Government detailed a strategic plan on how the blue economy would be a central part of the island nation’s future, as well as to a series of investments that have been made since then. But this evening, looking out at nearly...