UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said at the start of an important conference of the organization in Lisbon this Monday (27), the world is facing an “emergency” in the oceans that threatens nature and humanity.
“Today we face what I would call an ocean emergency,” Guterres told thousands of government representatives, experts and environmental activists, before highlighting how the oceans are being affected by climate change and pollution.
Humanity depends on the health of the oceans and 50% of the oxygen we breathe is produced in the seas.
In addition, marine life provides the essential proteins and nutrients that feed billions of people every day.
Also, since oceans cover 70% of the Earth’s surface, they cushion the impact of climate change on life on Earth at a significant associated cost.
Ocean acidification from CO2 and marine heat waves that can last for several months continue to kill coral reefs, on which 25% of marine life and nearly 250 million people depend.
“Damage”
“We are beginning to understand the extent to which climate change is harming the health of the oceans,” said Charlotte de Fontaubert, a World Bank official focusing on the Blue Economy. seas.
Worse still, there’s a flood of pollution filling the waters equivalent to the contents of one garbage truck per minute, calculates the UN Environment program.
If it continues at the current rate, plastic pollution will triple by 2060. Currently, microplastics kill one million seabirds and 100,000 mammals each year.
Conference attendees will discuss solutions ranging from recycling to banning plastic bags altogether.
Another important topic of the conference jointly organized by Portugal and Kenya is overfishing.
“At least a third of the wild fish population is overfished and less than 10% of the ocean is protected,” Kathryn Mathews, scientific director of the US NGO Oceana, told AFP.
“Illegal fishing boats attack with complete impunity, both in coastal waters and on the high seas,” he emphasizes.
Protect the seafloor
The discussions will also address a final moratorium to protect the seafloor from the exploitation of rare metals to produce batteries for the growing electric vehicle industry.
A coalition of almost 100 countries is promoting a measure declaring protected zones to cover 30% of the planet’s oceans and land.
The new ‘main motivation’, ‘blue food’ should make the oceans a sustainable and equitable livelihood.
Many ministers and some heads of state will attend the Lisbon meeting, which is not intended to serve as a session for official negotiations.
Still, some attendees will have the opportunity to advocate an ambitious ocean policy aimed at two key meetings by the end of the year.
One is the UN climate conference COP 27, held in Egypt in November. The other is the long-awaited United Nations COP15 conference on biodiversity, which will now be held in Canada, not China.
source: Noticias
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