Because it absorbs CO2 emissions, the oceans play a vital role in our ecosystem. With the forests, they are one of the lungs of our civilization. But climate change jeopardizes this balance. A report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on the oceans is expected in September. "One in every two breaths we take comes from the oxygen produced by the ocean," says Peter Thomson, UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy for the Oceans.
At the end of June the UN representative was the guest of Patricia Ricard, president of the Paul Ricard Oceanographic Institute (IOPR) and a director of the Veolia Foundation, on Ile des Embiez, in the Var, in the presence of Thierry Vandevelde, Veolia Foundation CEO. The discussions with a number of stakeholders that are very involved in the Mediterranean focused on the mobilization levers that could be activated. At the heart of the exchanges were marine biodiversity, fighting marine pollution, the effects of emerging pollutants on the marine environment, plastic pollution, and more.
The oceans are among the priorities of the Veolia Foundation which supports: Tara Océans for some considerable time, Plastic Odyssey, the first boat powered by plastic waste, the call for projects and the BeMed exchange platform, Sea Plastics and the Remora marine biodiversity revitalization program. With IOPR, tests have also been conducted to experiment on new forms of aquaculture…
The oceans are our second chance. Protecting them in the long term will keep our feet on... Earth.