United Nations Ocean Conference 2025: what’s at stake?

Climate change, overfishing, loss of biodiversity, exploitation of marine resources, plastic pollution: the ocean is enduring a multitude of negative factors that are threatening the very balance of our planet. 

Through its role in regulating the climate and the services it provides to mankind each and every day, the ocean is essential to life on Earth. We must not forget that when we breathe, one out of every two breaths we take comes from the ocean. 

Ocean topics have been high on the global political agenda for a number of years now, with a succession of international events bringing together States and organisations from civil society to focus discussions and decisions on preserving the oceans.

As a result, we have recently seen long years of negotiations culminate in a treaty being drafted for the preservation of biodiversity on the high seas. This treaty still has to be ratified by a large number of States. Discussions are continuing on the future of the seabed and the prospect of seabed mining, and negotiations are underway to draw up a global treaty to combat plastic pollution. 

These international gatherings are taking place against a backdrop of dramatic climatic events and warnings from scientists of the urgent need to take action. 

The United Nations has proclaimed the Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030), and among the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, SDG 14 aims to “Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development”. 

The 3rd High-Level Ocean Conference or UNOC 3, which will take place in Nice from the 9th to the 13th of June 2025, is jointly organised by France and Costa Rica and is a follow-up to the conferences held in New York in June 2017 and in Lisbon in June 2022. 

UNOC 3 aims to support efforts to implement SDG 14, and its overarching theme will be “Accelerating action and mobilizing all actors to conserve and sustainably use the ocean”. 

The conference will bring together governments, the United Nations system, intergovernmental organisations, international financial institutions, non-governmental organisations, civil society organisations, academic institutions, the scientific community, the private sector, philanthropic organizations, indigenous peoples and local communities to assess challenges and opportunities relating to the implementation of Goal 14.

At the “Our Ocean” conference that was held in Greece in April 2024, Hervé Berville, the French Secretary of State for the Sea and Biodiversity, stressed the need to swiftly ratify the International Treaty for the protection of the high seas and marine biodiversity (BBNJ) so that it can be implemented at the Conference in Nice in 2025. He reiterated the appeal for a moratorium or precautionary pause on seabed mining in international waters and the progress made in negotiations for a legally-binding Treaty to put an end to plastic pollution. 

France is also stressing its determination to make the “2025 Conference [...] an opportunity for mobilisation at the national level and efforts to raise youth awareness regarding ocean preservation and the conservation of our maritime heritage.”

To this end, Nausicaá will support and prepare a group of young citizens from all over the world so that they can convey the plea of their generation, the expression of their preoccupations for the future of the ocean and the solutions they propose.