Ahead of the United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC), which will take place in Nice from June 9 to 13, 2025, a hundred French parliamentarians have signed—at the initiative of Deputy Sophie Panonacle, President of the National Council of the Sea and Coastlines—a call for support for ocean sciences, seen as a prerequisite for any political decision. Five oceans, 113 seas, tens of thousands of species, and more than 8 billion people are in serious danger. While 70.8% of the planet is covered by water that regulates all its phenomena, nourishes us, heals us, and protects our lives, we turn our backs on the sea, out of fear or indifference. The ocean is the sine qua non condition for our future on Earth. By condemning it, we condemn ourselves. Yet, the reality is that we are subjecting it to the worst harms: plastic pollution, CO2 acidification, and overexploitation of marine resources.
In this context, it is urgent to provide the ocean with vital care. This immense challenge mobilizes an army in the shadows: the scientific community. Fortunately, France has a battalion of researchers in all fields of oceanographic science, integrated into Ifremer, the CNRS, and many other high-level international institutions that require essential financial support.
Members of parliament, senators, and European MPs, we are convinced that science’s contribution is crucial to saving the ocean. Today, as scientists are prevented from carrying out their missions in the United States, their voices must count more than ever in our debates and in the formulation of public policies, in France, Europe, and globally.
In this year of 2025, declared the « Year of the Sea, » it is time to hope, thanks to the mobilization of scientists, that the ocean will regain its place, its grandeur, and its rights. The One Ocean Science Congress, which will take place ahead of the United Nations Ocean Conference, will be the occasion to hear the voices of 2000 scientists from all over the world, gathered in Nice from June 3 to 6.
Our parliamentary responsibility is, at the very least, to support oceanographic research programs and to fully support all those who study the ocean’s surface, down to its deepest abysses.
Let us commit alongside them by launching « The Nice Call: Science to the Rescue of the Ocean. » This call is summarized in one essential principle: all national and international political decisions that could impact the protection of the ocean and its biodiversity must be based on science.
Source: sciencesetavenir
