Fossil fuels and illegal fishing, two outstanding issues at the Ocean Summit

Paris, June 13 (EFE) - A global pact to reduce fossil fuel emissions and combat illegal fishing and trawling have been outstanding items at the UN Ocean Summit (UNON3) in Nice, which concludes this Friday, according to climate experts.

Likewise, financial commitments have not been as expected. Among the main public investments, the EU announced a €1 billion Oceans Plan. The Pacific microstates most affected by marine pollution have complained about the slow arrival of financial resources, a point that has not been resolved in Nice either.

Fossil fuels:

"What we saw throughout the conference was a persistent difficulty in including the topic of fossil fuels on the official agenda and in side events," Bruna Campos, head of Offshore Oil and Gas Campaigns at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), criticized in a statement to EFE.

The emission of fossil fuels is associated with a global increase in temperatures and, therefore, with rising sea levels due to the melting of the poles.

"Rising sea levels have become the main threat to our existence, and the best way to combat them is to fight _CO2 emissions, because that is the simplest solution to climate change," Tuvalu's Prime Minister, Feleti Teo, said during the summit.

Under the best-case scenario for temperature increases by 2050 (the 1.5 degrees Celsius seen in Paris in 2015), Tuvalu's nine coral islands will experience increasingly frequent flooding, which could cover 60% of the main island by 2050 during certain storm events or tidal surges.

The Minister of Ecological Adaptation of another island nation present at UNOC3, Sivendra Michael, Minister of Ecological Adaptation in Fiji, was particularly critical.

"What's really happening is that the rules and conditions of the negotiations are dictated by the big companies and representatives of the oil-producing countries. That's a great injustice."

Illegal fishing and trawling:

"It's not that illegal fishing has taken a backseat; it's that it's been left much further behind," Michael Sealey, a marine biology expert with the NGO Oceana, lamented in a statement to EFE.

Despite the efforts of the event's host, France, and other European fishing powers, such as Spain, the push for a global fight against illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing remained in limbo in Nice.

It is estimated that at least 15% of the world's fish catch comes from this type of fishing. For France, illegal fishing "violates" the human rights of those involved and "destroys" the sectors that operate with proper documentation.

According to Sealey, while countries like Spain have robust fisheries control systems, other states do better than most of Europe.

"Central American countries, like Mexico, are very effective at controlling protected areas to prevent illegal fishing," the expert noted.

At the closing of the conference, Olivier Poivre d'Arvor, French President Emmanuel Macron's special envoy for UNOC3, called on China to become more involved in combating illegal fishing.

Regarding the trawling technique—harmful to the seabed, according to scientists—expert sentiment was also tempered, as there was no general consensus to move toward global control.

The United Kingdom announced a ban on this type of fishing, while France asserted that it is a "good student," despite criticism for its continued use of the technique. It asserted that only 40 vessels in the country use trawling, compared to the more numerous ones in Italy and Spain.

"Trawling particularly destroys the ocean floor and drives the climate crisis. Very few countries have stepped up to address it," said John Kerry, former US Secretary of State and former special climate envoy. EFE

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Photo: Archive resource: EFE/Cristóbal García