Forty-four commitments to protect the ocean valued at close to €1 billion have been announced by the EU for the period 2020-2022 at the seventh Our Ocean Conference (OOC) in Palau.
According to the European Commission, the EU’s commitments covered all the themes of the 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.
A tracking tool has also been developed to allow the progress of the commitments to be followed.
“The sum the EU is committing today is significant, but not as significant as the role that 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,” EU Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, Virginijus Sinkevičius, said.
Within the EU’s commitments, almost €500 million over the period 2021-2023 will go to research, development and innovation in seed funding for the Horizon Mission “Restore our Ocean and Waters by 2030”, which addresses the ocean and waters as one and will play a key role in achieving climate neutrality and restoring nature.
It will help achieve the EU objectives of protecting 30% of the member states’ sea area as well as restore marine ecosystems, prevent and eliminate pollution by reducing plastic litter at sea, nutrient losses and use of chemical pesticides, and help the further development of a sustainable and circular blue economy.
The EU has also announced a contribution of €55 million over two years to strengthen marine environmental monitoring and the monitoring of climate change, through its satellite monitoring programme, Copernicus, and in particular the WEkEO service that allows the international research community to access in one place all products describing the past, present and future of the earth system together with online tools for environmental science on cloud computing facilities.
Originally launched in 2014, OOC took place in the US in 2014 and 2016. Chile hosted it in 2015, the EU in 2017, Indonesia in 2018 and Norway in 2019.
This year’s conference closed with 410 commitments worth $16.35 billion across the six issue areas of the conference. Since 2014, OOC has now mobilised more than 1,800 commitments worth approximately $108 billion.
