By Rémi Parmentier, Director, The Varda Group, and Coordinator, Let’s Be Nice to the Ocean initiative

I am writing from Hydra, the small Greek island where Canadian “singing poet” Leonard Cohen settled in the early 1960s and where he composed some of the most iconic songs of my generation. At the invitation of Ambassador Peter Thomson, the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for the Ocean, a relatively small group of ocean advocates representing a mix of government officials, scientists, economists, and activists are gathered in Hydra to discuss new ideas to protect the ocean.

In a paper written last year, ‘Let’s Be Nice to the Ocean,’ I made an audacious proposal – a blindingly obvious one given the alarming changes in planetary life support systems – that ocean protection becomes the norm rather than the exception.

The ‘Hydra retreat’ is taking stock of the international efforts to protect the global ocean and address obstacles at a critical time when record-breaking ocean temperatures are putting marine life and coastal and island communities at risk. I often describe the ocean as the engine room of the climate system because it has been a critical buffer against climate change, absorbing some 90% of the excess heat and around 25% of the carbon dioxide (CO2) we send to the atmosphere. But tipping points are being reached and ocean risks are increasing:

The chemical composition of the ocean is changing due to increased CO2 concentrations, affecting in various ways marine life, in particular mollusks and crustaceans.
Ocean warming is affecting ocean currents, fish migration patterns, and critical habitats, including coral reefs which are home to 25% of marine biodiversity.
Ocean level rise is taking place faster than previously anticipated, due to the acceleration of cryosphere (ice) melting. This is changing the geography of our planet, affecting coastal and islands communities and enhancing extreme weather patterns.

Protecting the ocean increases the resilience of marine life and ocean ecosystems, which is critical not only for them, but for all life on Earth.

The retreat is being held on the eve of an annual gathering of ocean advocates pledging voluntary ocean action, the ninth Our Ocean Conference, taking place in Athens this week. More importantly, we are also looking ahead to the Third UN Ocean Conference being convened in Nice, France, a little over a year from now, in June 2025. Instituted in 2017, the UN Ocean Conference is held every three years (pandemics notwithstanding) to review and promote the implementation of the nine targets of SDG 14, the Sustainable Development Goal for the Ocean adopted in 2015 as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Addressing issues such as marine pollution, overfishing, or marine protected areas (MPAs), SDG 14 aims to protect ‘Life below Water,’ but the ocean is better described as “the blue miracle,” to use the words of the veteran ocean explorer Sylvia Earle: “Without the ocean, Earth would be as bleak and barren as Mars.”

Walking up the narrow streets of Hydra this evening, and passing by the house of Leonard Cohen, which has become one of the island’s main landmarks, I started humming “everybody knows,” one of my favorite songs.

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded. … And everybody knows that the plague is coming. Everybody knows that it’s moving fast.

One of the nine SDG 14 targets missed so far is the prohibition by 2020 of fisheries subsidies contributing to overfishing (Target 14.6). Environmentally and socially harmful subsidies in the fisheries sector are “loading the dice” because they benefit mainly the large industrial fleets to the detriment of small-scale artisanal fishers. Without these subsidies – especially fuel subsidies – it would not be affordable for these industrial fleets to operate in distant waters and in the high seas, indiscriminately depleting marine life in their wake.

Everybody got this broken feeling. Like their father or their dog just died. Everybody knows. That’s how it goes.

After endless discussions, the 2022 World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference agreed to eliminate subsidies that contribute to illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and promised – to complete their SDG 14 mandate – to negotiate a supplementary agreement at their next meeting to secure the elimination of subsidies contributing to the overcapacity of industrial fishing fleets. However, two years after its adoption, some 30 ratifications by WTO members are still missing to bring the 2022 agreement into force, and the February 2024 WTO Ministerial Conference broke its promise to put an end to overcapacity.

Everybody knows that the captain lied. Everybody got that broken feeling.

So, the fence which the WTO said it would erect to prevent IUU fishing is cracking. And who knows when – if ever – action will be taken by the WTO to eliminate subsidies contributing to overcapacity. Meanwhile, fish resources and marine ecosystems continue to shrink.

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking. … Everybody knows the deal is rotten.

The livelihoods of small-scale artisanal fishing communities are leaking away while the large industrial fishing fleets of rich countries enjoy their rotten deal. Approximately 80% of all fisheries subsidies go to the large industrial fishing fleets – tax rebates and fuel subsidies to sail long distances, depleting the fish resources along the coasts of poorer countries and in the high seas. In other words, rich governments continue to use taxpayers’ money to maintain energy-hungry, non-selective, and destructive fishing methods like bottom trawling that cause irreversible damage to vulnerable marine ecosystems, distorting markets and undermining their international commitments.

Everybody knows the good guys lost. Everybody knows the fight was fixed. The poor stay poor, the rich get rich. That’s how it goes. Everybody knows.

There was a ray of hope at the end of 2022 when, as part of another agreement known as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), the international community agreed to reduce incentives harmful to biodiversity (both on land and at sea) by at least USD 500 billion per year. Countries said they would “identify by 2025” (by next year), “and eliminate, phase out or reform incentives, including subsidies, harmful to biodiversity, in a proportionate, just, fair, effective and equitable way, while substantially and progressively reducing them by at least USD 500 billion per year by 2030, starting with the most harmful incentives, and scale up positive incentives for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity” (Target 18).

This Biodiversity Framework would be a good way to fix the dice if implemented fully and fast. However, having witnessed in the last few months how quickly intensive farming interests could derail the EU’s flagship Green Deal, the EU Directive on Nature Restoration, or the prohibition of certain pesticides, it remains to be seen whether this agreement will be enough to prevent the good guys from losing.

Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed. … That’s how it goes. Everybody knows.

Will our governments put their words into action and put their – our – money where their mouths are? I’m keeping my fingers crossed. According to research from the University of British Columbia, Canada, harmful fisheries subsidies amount annually to approximately USD 20 billion. Eliminating these has not happened even though it represents a relatively modest amount compared to the USD 500 billion reduction agreed in the Kunming-Montreal GBF.

Everybody talking to their pockets. Everybody wants a box of chocolates. And a long-stem rose. Everybody knows.

Because reaching agreements requires consensus from all governments, global ocean governance is slow and convoluted. However, intergovernmental gatherings like the UN Ocean Conference can play an important role as accelerators or incubators of international policy.

For example the Second UN Ocean Conference held in Lisbon in June 2022 accelerated the adoption by the UN General Assembly (UNGA) less than a year later of an international treaty to protect the high seas which will allow the designation of marine protected areas in the area beyond countries’ national jurisdiction, an area which represents 64% of the global ocean and no less than 45% of the entire planet. The Lisbon conference also incubated a campaign to prevent deep-sea mining, a high-risk emerging activity which a coalition of 25 countries wants to prevent in 2025.

Next year’s Third UN Ocean Conference, which will start with a Forum on the Blue Economy, could also be an opportunity to accelerate the elimination of harmful fisheries subsidies. For example, governments gathered in Nice could say they will no longer wait for the WTO and announce that, from 2026 onward, they will remove harmful fisheries subsidies from their national budgets with no further delay to comply with their SDG obligation, and use for ocean protection the money that will be freed as a result.

Before it blows – and everybody knows.