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Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
This conference has made clear once again that healthy oceans are essential for human survival. It is therefore high time that we improve the extremely poor state of our oceans: they are overheated, acidified, overfished, overused and polluted with our plastic waste. Marine conservation and protection helps us in the fight against the triple crisis of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss.
The G7 environment ministers’ Ocean Deal adopted at the end of May under the German Presidency, which has now also been endorsed by the heads of state and government, sends a strong political signal — we want to align ocean protection with nature- and environmentally friendly use.
The Ocean Deal provides an urgently needed framework for future protective measures and outlines areas where the G7 countries can immediately move forward. Its core messages are:
- The G7 is committed to concluding the negotiations this year on an agreement on the conservation of biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ). To this end, we need better multilateral cooperation and fully protected marine protected areas.
- The G7 explicitly calls for marine areas to finally be placed under protection in Antarctica with the help of CCAMLR (Commission for the Conservation of Marine Living Resources).
- The G7 countries recognise the risks of possible deep-sea mining in future for the marine environment. They call for consistent and stringent environmental requirements, which should be adopted by the International Seabed Authority (ISA). For instance, developing binding environmental standards with quantitative thresholds, establishing a uniform and ambitious basis for regional environmental management plans and stipulating trial mining in the context of environmental impact assessments.
- The Ocean Deal contains clear statements on the fight against the pollution of our environment and oceans with plastic. Rather than waiting for an international convention on plastic pollution, the G7 countries committed to start taking action on this issue now.
We must now focus on rigorously implementing these decisions.
Germany plans to significantly boost marine conservation and protection with a marine protection initiative. For example:
- through a binding marine strategy to harmonise nature- and environmentally friendly use
- and through coordination of marine policy led by a marine policy coordinator at the Federal Environment Ministry.
The global oceans are our allies in the fight against the climate crisis. They provide oxygen, regulate the climate and are important carbon sinks. Marine ecosystems like coral reefs and mangrove forests offer vital protection against floods, which are becoming more frequent due to climate change. Our oceans deserve better protection. Thank you.