Madrid, Europe Brief News – Climate activists urged world leaders to keep promises they made at the UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon this week.
As the conference comes to an end, several NGOs urged world leaders to do everything to save the world’s seas.
“The ocean, climate and coastal communities worldwide need real progress, not promises, when it comes to ocean health,” Marco Lambertini, director-general of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), said.
The WWF told leaders to seize the momentum and resolve longstanding issues surrounding the protection of the high seas such as plastic pollution by swiftly enacting and ratifying “robust global treaties”.
The conference brought together about 7,000 delegates, including heads of state, scientists and NGOs.
Many shared worries that the energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine could undermine efforts to fight climate change. Others, including President Emmanuel Macron of France, expressed concerns about deep-sea mining and some called for a moratorium.
In a joint statement published by an alliance of numerous NGOs, including BUND, WWF and Misereor, criticised the conference’s closing statement as non-committal; it remained uncertain, whether voluntary measures would be carried through, and there was neither a report on the progress of the goals set out in the last conference, which took place in New York in 2017, nor a means of control for the implementation of the new aims.
