Lisbon, 30 Jun 2022 (AFP) – The international community needs to adopt a “robust treaty” to protect the oceans before 2030, urged the environmental NGO Greenpeace in the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, on the sidelines of the UN on the subject.
“We need a robust ocean treaty that puts ocean protection above profit and creates a network of ocean sanctuaries,” Laura Meller, a Greenpeace consultant, told the press.
“We are here to tell the world leaders gathered in Lisbon that we must move from words to actions,” he added.
Around 7,000 political leaders, experts and environmental advocates from around 140 countries gathered this week in the Portuguese capital to participate in the UN conference.
The meeting is not intended to be a formal negotiation session, but some participants took advantage of the meeting to advocate an ambitious ocean policy ahead of two crucial summits to be held later in the year.
One of them is the UN climate conference, COP27, in November in Egypt. The other is the long-awaited UN biodiversity conference COP15, which will finally be held in Canada rather than China.
A coalition that brings together almost a hundred countries promotes a beacon measure to declare protection zones that cover 30% of the planet’s oceans and lands.
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