Countries from all over the world have committed to new pledges to protect oceans from human activities. Gathering at the One Ocean Summit in Brest, France EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced three key initiatives for cooperation to preserve and revive the oceans. These include a new international coalition to protect biodiversity on high seas, which constitute 95% of the ocean; a major computing project allowing researchers to digitally simulate the world’s oceans; and the EU’s research mission to restore our ocean and waters by 2030.

The High Ambition Coalition on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdictions aims to do more to protect the seas which are beyond the national jurisdiction of specific countries. This accounts for the majority of the world’s oceans. The summit also focussed on the plastic pollution problem, reminding member states of the Single Use Plastics directive which came into force last year. This aims to prevent marine litter such as fishing gear that is dumped at sea.

The EU is also putting science and technology at the heart of ocean preservation. “Missions” are a new EU approach to tackle major societal challenges, providing a critical mass of resources for focused research. The Mission “Restore our Ocean and Waters by 2030” aims to ensure that the ocean plays a central role in meeting the 2030 targets of the European Green Deal. It will support big innovation projects – “lighthouses” – aimed at developing and testing solutions in support of protecting 30% of the EU’s sea area, restoring marine and waterway ecosystems, reducing plastic litter at sea, nutrient losses and use of chemical pesticides by 50%, and making the blue economy climate-neutral and circular.