After two weeks in Glasgow, the Ocean & Climate Platform (OCP) looks back on its involvement during COP26 where many events were organised and publications were showcased.
Events co-organized by the Ocean & Climate Platform :
- On the 2nd of November, at the French Pavillon, the OCP co-organised with the French Office for Biodiversity the event : ‘An ocean of solutions to tackle the climate and biodiversity crises’. This high-level event, moderated by OCP’s General Secretary, Loreley Picourt has brought together several politicians, such as Barbara Pompili, French Minister of Ecological Transition; Andrea Meza, Minister of Environment and Energy of Costa Rica; Andres Couve, Minister of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation of Chile; Sue Biniaz, Deputy Special Envoy of the President of the United States for Climate Change, as well as Peter Thomson, UN Special Envoy for the Ocean. After some opening remarks made by OCP’s president, Romain Troublé, followed by political speeches, Johachim Claudet, President of OCP’s scientific committee, presented the recently published OCP Policy Brief: “Protection the Ocean, Mitigating Climate Change?”.
Find the event on this link (00:15:02 – 1.29.00)
- On the 4th November, the OCP co-organised with ‘Comité 21’ and the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) the event: “Ensuring biodiversity benefits of Nature-based Solutions”. Moderated by Marine Lecerf, OCP’s Advocacy and International Relations Officer, this event convened marine, terrestrial and urban experts from multiple sectors to explore how nature-based solutions (NBS) can deliver an integrated approach to tackle the climate and biodiversity crises. Théophile Bongarts also presented the Sea’Ties initiative.
Watch the replay of this event on this link
- The 5th November : Focus on Ocean Action Day:
Designated as the ocean focal point of the MP-GCA within the UNFCCC in 2020, the OCP co-organised the ocean and coastal zones action event: ‘Ocean solutions for a resilient, net-zero future’. Moderated by Loreley Picourt and Ignace Beguin, and with the participation of more than 40 high-level experts from various sectors, this event aimed to highlight the solutions that the ocean brings to the fight against climate change.
The ocean community is very aware of the vulnerability of the ocean to current climate-related changes. Indeed, Marco Lambertini, general director of WWF noted that: “Science is so clear about the impact the ocean has that this idea of vast and immense invincible ocean is gone”. Despite these science-based truths on the impact climate change has on the ocean, the ocean is also a source of solutions to address these global changes. For instance, M. Sanjayan, CEO for Conservation International, noted during this event that “you cannot get to climate change without the ocean, the road to Cairo (COP27) is going to be through the ocean, because it has a great potential to store carbon”. Structured around several roundtables, this event has been an opportunity for ocean stakeholders to present different solutions they have witnessed or implemented to address the global climate challenge. Théophile Bongarts, project manager at the Ocean & Climate Platform has presented the Sea’ties initiative. Overall, this event was a success and turned out to be the most followed COP 26 thematic event of the MP-GCA, with more than 1500 live viewers. Peter Thomson, UN Special Envoy for the Ocean concluded this event by saying that: “This COP26 is very different from previous COPs, we are focused on the solutions and how we are gonna get ourselves out of this situation”.
This event also featured several ocean-related commitments (not an exhaustive list):
– Costa Rica reaffirmed its commitment to protect 30% of the ocean under its national jurisdiction by 2022
– The government of Seychelles presented its ambition to protect 100% of seagrass and mangroves by 2025, and to include blue carbon in their national GHG inventory
– The Nature Conservancy announced their successful collaboration with Belize which launched the first blue bond program in Latin America.
– Netflix’s showcased the company’s goal to become a net zero GHG emitter by December 2022 and announced the launch of the Blue Carbon Buyers Alliance with Salesforce, Disney, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon and Workday
Find the full event by clicking on this link.
- On the 5th November, for Ocean Action Day, Lisa Devignol, Sea’ties Project Officer, also participated in the online event ‘Ocean & Adaptation, Resilience, and Mitigation: Creating and implementing the enabling conditions for action through science, capacity building, and other cross-cutting approaches’. At this event, which highlighted various initiatives for a greater coastal and ocean resilience, including capacity building and nature-based solutions, Lisa Devignol, Project Officer, presented the Sea’ties project. and the Map of Solutions, highlighting the importance of considering coastal adaptation as an inherently multidisciplinary process requiring a hybridisation of solutions, whilst the need for a greater participation in capacity building across all regions and between all actors involved.
Find this event on this link (in the ‘November 5’ tab)
- On the 9th November, for EU Action Day, the OCP was co-organiser of the event: “EU Ocean Day at COP26”. Moderated by Virginijus Sinkevičius, European Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, this event focused on the institutionalisation of the ocean and climate nexus at the European level. The speakers, such as Hans-Otto Pörtner, co-chair of the IPCC WGII, or Manuel Barange, Director, Fisheries & Aquaculture Policy and Resources Division at the FAO, provided great insights on the EU’s potential in achieving the Paris Agreement goals.
Watch the event replay on this link
- On the 10th November, Marine Lecerf, Advocacy and International Relations Officer, was invited as a panelist for the event “Ocean and the Global Stocktake” at the “Nature Pavilion”. This event, which focused on how to include the ocean in the Global Stocktake, was an opportunity to present “Coastal and marine ecosystems as nature-based solutions in new or updated nationally determined contributions” published for the opening of COP26. This analysis is also accompanied by an interactive dashboard, jointly produced by the Ocean & Climate Platform and Salesforce, to be discovered here.
Watch the replay of the event on this link (2:48:00 – 4:11:00)