NICE, France — World leaders, scientists and officials gathered on Monday to open the third United Nations Ocean Conference and launch a global appeal to save the world's oceans, which scientists say are in bad health.
The presidents of France and Costa Rica launched the summit with speeches calling for bold action to address the myriad problems oceans face, including warming, rising seas, pollution — especially plastics — overfishing and the destruction of biodiversity and marine environments.
The summit's work actually began last week, when thousands of scientists from across the world descended on Nice to hammer out recommendations to give to policy makers.
The scientists met in large tents along Nice's colorful port, where azure waters sparkle under the Mediterranean buildings' pastel-colored façades. As the summit approached, research and scientific boats pulled into the harbor, including a giant, three-mast Norwegian tall ship.
Science skepticism
Former Secretary of State John Kerry, who served as special climate envoy in the Biden administration, opened the scientific conference.
"Never has your knowledge and expertise been more relevant than today, and never have we known - at least in the modern world — a time where the life's work of scientists is so openly scorned or ignored by those who claim to lead," said Kerry.
He mentioned no names, but the Trump administration's policies that conflict with scientific consensus and cut research funding have been on everyone's minds here. Glaringly absent are U.S. scientific agencies like NASA and NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Their scientists weren't allowed to attend the summit, say organizers.
However, Lisa Levin, a professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego, is in attendance, along with 140 American scientists from private institutions and universities.
"The main thing we see is the complete lack of U.S. federal scientists," says Levin. "They have played a major role on almost all the issues being discussed in this conference so they are really missed. NOAA, especially, has long-term observations that are being threatened that the entire scientific community around the world depends on."
"U.S. oceanography has always been a strong contributor to global science," says François Houllier, the CEO of IFREMER, the French marine science institute that brought the scientists together. "There's only one global ocean, everything is connected. For that reason international cooperation is really something critical."
A good example, says Houllier, is the Argo Program, which uses some 4,000 floats around the world to record ocean temperatures at all depths. That data is crucial to climate and weather predictions and understanding.
"If you don't have these, you don't know that the ocean is warming," said Houllier. "If you don't know that the ocean is warming, you don't understand why the sea level is rising."
Houllier says the United States provides about half of the floats. And their data, uploaded to satellites, is stored in two servers — one in France and one in the U.S. The Trump administration has announced cuts to funding at NOAA, which threatens U.S. participation in the program.
"And so what will happen in the coming years in the U.S. is very important," Houllier said. "Will the U.S. be able to continue to contribute to this international global program or will they stop?"
Jeff Ardron, Africa oceans director with the Nature Conservancy, says this third U.N. ocean conference is taking on an urgency that the previous two did not have.
"There's a very quickly growing recognition and acceptance that the ocean issues are important and they need our attention," said Ardron.
The U.N. special envoy for the ocean Peter Thomson says the scientific evidence is undeniable.
"We're not talking anymore about what might be coming. It is coming," he said.
Speaking of fossil fuel emissions, Thomson said: "We must acknowledge the fact that we have altered our system. We have engaged in a giant geoengineering project that we didn't even know we were doing, and we have succeeded in warming the planet," he said, explaining that 90% of the earth's warming is captured and held by the oceans.
"And of course, warming the planet is warming the ocean, and warming the ocean means sea level rise," he said.
Coastal mayors are worried
Hundreds of mayors from coastal cities have also shown up for the conference. They held their own coastal resilience summit over the weekend, at the invitation of Nice's Mayor Christian Estrosi.
The mayors hailed from Pacific islands and Norwegian fjord towns like Bergen. Norway has the world's second longest coastline.
"The challenges with the climate and the rising sea level cannot be solved alone," said Bergen's Mayor Marit Warncke. "It requires cooperation beyond borders — cities, regions and countries with their civil society and technology developers must be involved."
Many of the ocean's problems are linked to climate change, scientists emphasized. Among the proposals: greenhouse emissions must be reduced, and plastics must be used less. Some 8 million tons of plastic are dumped in the sea every year and those plastics are breaking down into particles known as nanoplastics which are absorbed into animal and human bloodstreams.
One part of the ocean that was previously thought untouched and stable — the deep sea — has actually warmed too. And for the first time it is getting a lot of attention.
"Our climate would be far too hot to live on if we didn't have the ocean and most people don't realize that most of the ocean is the deep sea," says Levin of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. "But it is still the great unknown."
She says it is usually ignored in major discussions and policy negotiations. "But a lot of the conversations here have been about the threats facing the deep sea."
The biggest of those is deep-sea mineral mining and the idea of making the deep sea a dumping ground for unwanted carbon. While no deep-sea mineral mining has yet taken place, the Trump administration has given the go-ahead for it.
Scientists in Nice say the deep sea is still a place of great uncertainty and far too fragile to be tampered with. The Nature Conservancy's Ardron says any damage could take tens of thousands, if not millions, of years to repair.
Diva Amon is a marine scientist at the Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
"My ask is for decision makers at the United Nations conference [to] take action," she said. "For too long there has been inaction. Many people say we don't know enough, need much more science. Yes, you always need more science. But we have enough science to make informed decisions about many things. More than enough for global leaders to make the right decisions to save our oceans."
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