Speeches

Mr President, Minister, Commissioner, I would like to talk to you about a subject that advanced to COP26 – admittedly, very slowly, much too slowly. It is the integration of the ocean into the implementation of the Paris Agreement, the integration of all ocean-based solutions. Before 2015, the ocean was not even mentioned in the negotiations. After six years of mobilising the international community, friends of the ocean – which I welcome here – the ocean is now anchored in the multilateral climate regime. But we have to go much further. Let me remind you that every second breath we take is due to the ocean, which absorbs a quarter of our anthropogenic emissions. Europe, Commissioner, the world’s first maritime space, must integrate these ocean-based solutions into the implementation of the Green Deal. We need a real "blue pact".

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, to illustrate the role of development policy in addressing biodiversity loss in developing countries in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals, I would like to tell you about the great project of the Great Green Wall, a project to which the European Union contributes EUR 750 million per year until 2025. This African initiative to combat desertification, which consists of replanting trees from Dakar to Djibouti, is in fact also an agroforestry project and also a project that meets the objectives of climate and biodiversity, eradicating hunger, poverty, local economic development, anticipating conflicts and migration, etc. I went to Senegal this summer and I can testify that the objectives are not achieved despite the effectiveness of some local projects. On a global level, Commissioner, there is an urgent need to: We have less than 10 years to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and bring these 17 SDGs to life. To restore the objectives, marine and terrestrial biodiversity embodied by SDGs 14 and 15, for example, it is of course necessary to preserve, restore, manage sustainably but it is also necessary to act on the other 15 SDGs. We always talk about the Sustainable Development Goals as a goal to be achieved, but we should look at them much more as the backbone of our public policies so as to integrate our policies much more. Faced with a systemic problem, we need systemic responses, so I will vote for this report, Madam Rapporteur, and I thank you and also your shadow rapporteur, María Soraya Rodríguez Ramos, who could not be present today for these debates.

Madam President, Commissioner, Minister, ladies and gentlemen, since I joined the European Parliament, I have been constantly making the voice of the ocean heard and making the importance of maritime issues understood. So today, with this resolution, we want to make the voice of the icy Antarctic Ocean heard and support the indispensable creation of two vast marine protected areas of 3 million square kilometres. There is only one ocean. Its southern part, which circles the Antarctic continent, plays a major role in balancing the climate and contains wealth that provides vital ecosystem services for all of humanity. It is a common good of humanity. Before setting foot on the Antarctic continent, I bypassed it twice on my two round-the-world tours and then traveled through one of the sub-Antarctic islands, South Georgia. I can testify to the richness of these seas, where we are constantly accompanied by albatrosses. On the Antarctic Peninsula, the biologist and diver we had on board captured stunning images, witnessing the ingenuity of nature in an extreme environment. But since then, scientists have been warning: Antarctica’s climate is warming three times faster than the global average. The latest analyses of ice cores show contamination of Antarctic ice by microplastics and polymers. There is an increasing number of tourists, and krill fishing threatens the balance of whale and penguin populations. The creation of these marine protected areas under the aegis of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources is therefore a climate and biodiversity challenge. But it is also a diplomatic and geostrategic challenge for the European Union. Seven EU Member States and the EU itself are members of CCAMLR, which has 26 members, and decisions are taken unanimously. It has been said that two countries, China and Russia, have opposed the establishment of these marine protected areas nine times. President von der Leyen has made these marine areas a key focus of this mandate, and I would like to give her my full support and welcome your own commitment, Commissioner. Following the statements of the G7 and the last EU-US summit, the EU must take the lead in convincing the two recalcitrant states, notably China, of the diplomatic advantage they would gain from not holding back the move, ahead of COP15. Just as US support was fundamental to the creation of the first marine protected areas, the EU must act in these negotiations. In conclusion, I would like to thank all my colleagues, including Grace O’Sullivan, and their teams, for working together on this resolution, which is the first European Parliament resolution on Antarctica.