The second United Nations (UN) Ocean Conference, a gathering that will discuss how best to conserve and sustainably use the oceans and marine resources for sustainable development, is to take place in Lisbon’s Altice Arena between the 27thJune and the 1st July.
Jointly organised by the Portuguese and Kenyan governments, the event will take as an overarching theme “Scaling up ocean action based on science and innovation for the implementation of Goal 14: stocktaking, partnerships and solutions”. It will call on world leaders to increase ambition, mobilize partnerships and propel science-based innovative solutions towards the implementation of policies and actions that achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14 – Life Below Water.
Under the banner “Save our Ocean, Protect our Future”, the conference will particularly address the threats to health, ecology, economy and governance of the ocean, such as acidification, marine litter and pollution, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, and the loss of habitats and biodiversity.
Liu Zhenmin, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, will be the Secretary-General of the conference, and Miguel de Serpa Soares, Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs, will be the special adviser to the presidents of the conference on the ocean and legal matters.
“I think this conference in Lisbon in June is going to be about providing the solutions to the problems that we’ve alerted the world to”, said Ambassador Peter Thomson, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Oceans. “And I’m very confident that those solutions emerge when we get there”.
The conference is to be the largest ever UN event ever organized on the theme of the oceans, with around 12,000 attendees including Heads of State and Government, as well as many non-governmental organizations, civil society participants, people from academia, youth organizations, and representatives from local communities.
Duarte Bué Alves, Consul General of Portugal in Manchester, delivering the Blue Talk keynote in Manchester, UK.
In the months prior to UN Oceans Conference, the organizing embassies also delivered a program of “Blue Talks” around the world to raise awareness of issues related to marine sustainability.
Source: United Nations
