Third UN Ocean Conference to Be Held in Nice, France

The third United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3) will be co-hosted by France and Costa Rica in the French city of Nice from June 9 to 13 with the aim of "accelerating action" on protecting the world's oceans.

The conference will cover climate change, pollution, biodiversity and making humanity's access to marine resources more sustainable.

The oceans are "not doing very well," UNESCO's head of marine policy Julien Barbiere said, citing increasing temperatures, sea level rise, pollution of various kinds and conflicts over fishing and mineral resources as main issues to be tackled during the conference.

The last few years have produced positive agreements and discussions on biodiversity and reducing pollution, but those need to be put into action and properly financed, Barbiere said.

He added that despite the problems, solutions do exist and the ocean has a great capacity to restore itself with help from humans.

Previous conferences were hosted in 2017 by Sweden and Fiji in New York and in 2022 by Portugal and Kenya in Lisbon.

(Reuters/Production: Manuel Ausloos, Ardee Napolitano, Lewis Macdonald)