“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 60 Heads of State and Government, to
France’s Mediterranean coast.
With over 450 side
events and nearly 100,000 visitors, the gathering, dubbed
UNOC3, built on the momentum of previous ocean summits in
New York (2017) and Lisbon (2022). It culminated in a shared
call to expand marine protection, curb pollution, regulate
the high seas, and unlock financing for vulnerable coastal
and island nations.
Ambitious pledges
The
conference’s outcome, known as the Nice Ocean Action Plan,
is a two-part framework that comprises a political
declaration and over 800 voluntary commitments by
governments, scientists, UN agencies, and civil society
since the previous conference.
“These range from
advocacy by youth to deep-sea ecosystem literacy, capacity
building in science and innovation, and pledges to ratify
intergovernmental treaties,” Mr. Li said.
The
pledges unveiled this week reflected the breadth of the
ocean crisis. The European Commission announced an
investment of €1 billion to support ocean conservation,
science, and sustainable fishing, while French Polynesia
pledged to create the world’s largest marine protected
area, encompassing its entire exclusive economic zone –
about five million square kilometers.
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Germany launched
a €100-million programme to remove underwater munitions
from the Baltic and North Seas. In addition, New Zealand
committed $52 million to strengthen ocean governance in the
Pacific, and Spain announced five new marine protected
areas.
A 37-country coalition led by Panama and Canada
launched the High Ambition Coalition for a Quiet Ocean to
tackle underwater noise pollution. Meanwhile, Indonesia and
the World Bank introduced a ‘Coral Bond’ to help finance
reef conservation in the country.
“The waves of
change have formed,” Mr. Li said. “It is now our
collective responsibility to propel them forward – for our
people, our planet, and future generations.”
A
diplomatic stage
The summit opened Monday with stark
warnings. “We are not treating the ocean as what it is –
the ultimate global commons,” said UN Secretary-General
António Guterres, alongside the presidents of France and
Costa Rica, Emmanuel Macron and Rodrigo Chaves Robles, who
called for a renewed multilateralism anchored in
science.
On Friday, France’s special envoy for the
conference, Olivier Poivre d’Arvor, recalled the stakes:
“We wanted in Nice… to take a chance on transformative
change. I believe we have moved forward, but we can no
longer go backwards.”
One of the conference’s main
objectives was to accelerate progress on the High Seas
Treaty – known as the BBNJ agreement – adopted in 2023
to safeguard marine life in international waters. Sixty
ratifications are needed for it to enter into force. Over
the past week, 19 countries ratified the accord, bringing
the total number as for Friday, to 50.
“This is a
significant victory,” said Mr. Poivre d’Arvor. “It’s
very difficult to work on the ocean right now when the
United States is so little involved.”
The French
envoy was alluding to the absence of a senior US delegation,
as well as President Donald Trump’s recent executive order
advancing deep-sea mining. “The abyss is not for sale,”
he said, echoing remarks made earlier in the week by
President Macron.
Still, Mr. Poivre d’Arvor
emphasized the broad agreement achieved at the summit.
“One country may be missing,” he said. “But 92 per
cent of the ‘co-owners’ were present today in
Nice.”
His counterpart, Arnoldo André-Tinoco, the
Foreign Minister of Costa Rica, urged other nations to
accelerate financing for ocean protection. “Each
commitment must be held accountable,” he said at the
conference’s closing meeting.
Momentum – and a
test
For Peter Thomson, the UN’s Special Envoy for
the Ocean, Nice marked a turning point. “It’s not so
much what happens at the conference, it is what happens
afterwards,” he told UN News, recalling the early days of
ocean advocacy when Sustainable Development Goal 14 (SDG14),
on life below water, was first established.
“From
the desert we were in back in 2015… to where we are now,
where you see this incredible engagement.”
Looking
ahead, attention is already turning to the Fourth UN Ocean
Conference, slated to be co-hosted by Chile and South Korea
in 2028.
“We’re going to again see a big surge
upwards from here,” Mr. Thomson predicted. He expressed
hope that major global agreements — including the BBNJ
treaty, the WTO Fisheries Subsidies Agreement, and the
future Global Plastics Treaty – will all be ratified and
implemented by then.
The 2028 summit will also mark a
moment of reckoning, as SDG 14 approaches its 2030
target.
“What do we do when SDG 14
matures in 2030?” Mr. Thomson asked. “Obviously, it’s
got to be raised ambition. It’s got to be stronger.” He
emphasized that while SDG14 had aimed to protect 10 per cent
of the ocean by 2020 – a target the world failed to meet
– the new benchmark is 30 per cent by
2030.
Wearing a shell necklace gifted by
the Marshall Islands, the Fiji native praised small island
nations and atoll collectives for setting ambitious marine
protections.
“If small countries can make big
measures like that, why can’t the big countries follow
suit?” he said.
He also saluted the 2,000 scientists
who gathered for the One Ocean Science Congress ahead of the
summit. “What a great way to run things,” he
said.
A show of unity
Despite the celebratory
tone, tensions lingered. Small Island Developing States
pushed for stronger language on loss and damage – harms
inflicted by climate change that go beyond what people can
adapt to. “You cannot have an ocean declaration without
SIDS,” one delegate warned earlier this
week.
Others, including President Chaves, of Costa
Rica, called for a moratorium on deep-sea mining in
international waters until science can assess the risks –
a step not included in the final declaration.
Still,
the political declaration adopted in Nice, titled Our ocean,
our future: united for urgent action, reaffirms the goal of
protecting 30 percent of the ocean and land by 2030, while
supporting global frameworks like the Kunming-Montreal
Biodiversity Agreement (adopted in 2022, committing nations
to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030 through ambitious
conservation targets and sustainable biodiversity
management) and the UN International Maritime
Organization’s (IMO) climate goals.
“The real
test,” Mr. Li said, “is not what we said here in Nice
– but what we do next.”
As the sun dipped behind
the Promenade des Anglais and the conference’s final
plenary adjourned, the sea – ancient, vital, and imperiled
– bore silent witness to a fragile but shared
promise.
