One Ocean Science Congress: scientific foundation for the 3rd United Nations Ocean Conference
Environment
Corporate
The ocean urgently needs decisive, swift, and unified efforts to address its critical condition. This is the challenge facing the global community at the third United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3), to be held in Nice from 9 to 13 June 2025. To ensure that the political decisions to be taken are rooted in science, IFREMER and CNRS organize the international scientific congress One Ocean Science bringing together 2,000 experts from all over the world.
The ocean is under threat from combined pressures, including climate change, overfishing, pollution, conflicting uses, etc. Reports from authoritative bodies such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the International Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), and the World Ocean Assessment (WOA) have highlighted the alarming state of ocean health and marine ecosystems, signaling a need for action. Yet, the global response to this crisis is still far from sufficient to stop and reverse the ocean’s accelerating decline.
The aim of the One Ocean Science congress is to provide Heads of State, Government, all participants of the third United Nations Ocean Conference, and the broader society, with comprehensive scientific insights on the ocean’s health, dynamics and future trajectory, on its conservation and sustainable uses, and on the services and benefits it provides to humanity.
The congress aims to explore various scenarios for the ocean in terms of the changing pressures it faces, its resilience, its restoration ability and the impact on public policy and management practices at local and global levels. It will assess the ocean’s capacity to support significant transitions as outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, particularly Sustainable Development Goal 14, which promotes the conservation and sustainable use of marine and coastal ecosystems.
Building on this wealth of knowledge, science-based recommendations will be formulated to the Heads of State and Government, who will meet in Nice at UNOC3, and to the wider international community, urging them to prioritize the ocean within the sustainable development framework and to increase funding for research into ocean solutions, infrastructure and the intersection of ocean policy and society.
Scheduled to be held in Nice from June 4-6, 2025, the One Ocean Science congress is set to precede the Ocean Rise & Resilience (ORR) Summit of Coastal Cities and Regions, the Blue Economy and Finance Forum (BEFF), and UNOC3.
François Houllier, CEO of IFREMER and co-chair of the One Ocean Science congress: "There is but one ocean, a global common, a critical resource to human prosperity and well-being. The series of recommendations to be addressed to heads of state and government at the One Ocean Science congress will be crafted with the world's leading oceanography experts. Ocean science is a collective art: only together can we better-understand the ocean from the coast to the high seas, from the abyss to the surface. Only together can we pool our scientific and technological knowledge to preserve these unknown environments in the most comprehensive way possible. Teams from Ifremer, the French research institute entirely dedicated to understanding the ocean, are working hard every day to ensure that this major ocean event is a success. Mobilization for the ocean can only be global, intergenerational and interdisciplinary. Therefore, we will be as one crew of ocean scientists from all over the world to protect our ocean, our climate, our planet, our future”.
Antoine Petit, CEO of CNRS: The ocean needs science, all of science. It's a major challenge for the sustainability of our planet. The CNRS encourages the entire scope of research on the ocean, to better understand it, but also to ensure its sustainability. With over a thousand scientists and some fifty laboratories involved in this field, our organization is on the front line. It has assumed its responsibilities by working with all its partners to establish the operating principles of a future International Panel for Ocean Sustainability (IPOS). The CNRS is heavily involved in the organization of the international One Ocean Science congress, one of whose aims is to provide recommendations to the heads of state and governments who will meet the following week at the United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice in June 2025.
The ocean needs science, all of science. It's a major challenge for the sustainability of our planet. The CNRS encourages the entire scope of research on the ocean, to better understand it, but also to ensure its sustainability. With over a thousand scientists and some fifty laboratories involved in this field, our organization is on the front line. It has assumed its responsibilities by working with all its partners to establish the operating principles of a future International Panel for Ocean Sustainability (IPOS). The CNRS is heavily involved in the organization of the international One Ocean Science congress, one of whose aims is to provide recommendations to the heads of state and governments who will meet the following week at the United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice in June 2025.
The One Ocean Science congress is jointly organized by CNRS and IFREMER, under the supervision of UNOC3 Chairs, H. E. Gina Guillen (Costa Rica) and H. E. Olivier Poivre d’Arvor (France). Jean-Pierre Gattuso (CNRS) and François Houllier (IFREMER) are the co-chairs the One Ocean Science congress.
