Panama City/New York. At the Our Ocean conference in Panama, participants pledged nearly $20 billion to protect the Oceans. A total of 341 commitments with a total value of 19.9 billion dollars (around 17.8 billion euros) were made. This was announced by the management of the ocean conference at the end of the two-day meeting on Saturday night.

The US government alone promised almost six billion dollars for 77 projects. The special envoy for climate issues, John Kerry, announced investments in marine protected areas, sustainable fisheries and renewable energies, among other things.

Host country Panama will almost double the size of its marine reserves. President Laurentino Cortizo signed a corresponding decree on Thursday. The area of ​​the Banco Volcán protected area in the Caribbean is to be expanded to almost 94,000 square kilometers in the future. Then 54 percent of the Panamanian exclusive economic zone would be under protection – at the moment it is already 30 percent. This zone extends 200 nautical miles from the coast of a country into the sea. There, the states have special rights under the law of the sea, such as exclusive fishing rights and rights to exploit natural resources.

Panama doubles size of marine protected areas

The EU also wants to increase its efforts for the oceans. The EU Commission announced spending of 816.5 million euros for 2023. “The oceans are part of who we are and we are responsible for them together,” said EU Commissioner for Environment and Oceans Virginijus Sinkevičius.

The EU projects therefore include investments of around 320 million euros for research to protect the biological diversity of the seas and to deal with the consequences of climate change on the oceans. 250 million euros are to flow into the launch of the earth observation satellite “Sentinel-1C”, which is to monitor icebergs and ice melt in the Arctic and monitor the effects of climate change. The EU wants to provide 126 million euros for the protection of biological diversity and the fight against climate change in Benin, Guyana and Tanzania.

Next ocean conference will be held in Greece

Representatives from 70 countries will take part in the “Our Ocean” conference. These include members from politics, business, environmental organizations and civil society. The goal are binding commitments by participants for new marine protected areassustainable fisheries, action against pollution and the impact of climate change on the world’s oceans.

The conference was held for the first time in 2014 at the initiative of the US government. Since then, according to the organizers, the participants have over 1800 mandatory measures decided and committed a total of approximately US$108 billion (approximately €101 billion) in investments. The next ocean conference will take place in Greece next year.

Hope for an agreement to protect the high seas

At the same time as the ocean conference in Panama, the United Nations have been negotiating an agreement to protect the high seas in New York since February 20. These areas make up 64 percent of the world’s oceans. Since they are outside the sovereign territories of states, there are currently no rules for the protection of plants and animals in the high seas. Last year, UN negotiations on the protection of the high seas had to be adjourned without any result. In a statement at the “Our Ocean” conference, Federal Environment Minister Steffi Lemke (Greens) appealed to the delegates to now achieve a successful conclusion of the agreement. “We have a historic opportunity for marine protection,” says Lemke.

The oceans are under pressure from global warming, intensive fishing and pollution. According to researchers, sea levels are rising at the moment due to global warming and ice melt by an average of 3.6 millimeters per year, the process will continue to accelerate in the future. The absorption of more and more CO₂ from the atmosphere leads to acidification of the oceans, which, in addition to warming the water, leads to the death of coral reefs. The biodiversity of the oceans is also threatened by deep-sea mining, plastic waste and fishing.

RND/kau/dpa