REMARKS BY THE PACIFIC OCEAN COMMISSIONER
UNOC 3 TECHNICAL MEETING
Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, distinguished guests, esteemed colleagues, and friends,
Alii and Good Morning.
Firstly, its good to see all the familiar ocean faces in one room. Its my great pleasure to welcome you all to this UNOC 3 Technical Meeting on behalf of UNSW and all our collaborative partners, including CROP.
In August 2024, Forum Leaders at their meeting in Tonga, tasked me as the Pacific Ocean Commissioner to coordinate closely with CROP and the Pacific Ocean Alliance to ensure the regional preparations are as inclusive as possible wit the view to supporting members efforts at UNOC3.
In this connection, in December of last year, Amb Thomson, the UN Resident Coordinator Dirk Wagener, the French Ambassador to Fiji, Government and a few of us got together to provide a regional briefing on the regional approach. As we gather here today, Im glad that through collaboration with CROP agencies, UNSW, the French Embassy and Partners we are able to put into practice some of the plans to prepare for UNOC 3 in Nice, France.
The UN Ocean Conference is a crucial process for the ocean and in particular SDG14. Imagine without this process, the ocean would be an added item into the mainstream conferences such as the Meeting of State Parties of the Law of the Sea Convention, Review Conference of the Fish Stocks Agreement, CBD COP, UNFCCC etc. This process is something the Pacific should be geared up for as main proponents for SDG14’s creation, and as an opportunity where the ocean takes centre stage at the Global stage after every three years to hold the world accountable to the noble goals of SDG14. The continuation of the UNOC process is therefore a must as we cannot afford to lose this momentum.
This UNOC3 Technical preparations is a crucial first part of our regional approach towards Nice in June. This pathway towards Nice is a journey where we must get everyone onboard. The presence of Members, CROP and POA, is in line with the Leaders mandate on the UNOC 3 preparations and our discussions here this week and hopefully the ongoing work and collaboration will continue up until the Ocean Ministers Meeting to be held on 10 – 12 April 2025. Basically, the Ocean Ministers will consider what we discuss this week and also the work that will continue between now and April. We will be presenting a concept and programme of this meeting later in the week and I will welcome your feedback as this may be the first Ocean Minsters gathering.
I encourage us to treat this meeting as a true technical meeting where you are able to think aloud, be innovative and provide the technical and scientific aspects that often don’t see the limelight.
The objectives of this meeting are clear. I hope we will be able to achieve this. I request also special focus on a few things this week:
- Call on partners support to Members in terms of their national voluntary commitments.
- Possible ideas for regional voluntary commitments. I note the 2050 Strategy already has some regional collective actions which may be put into phased approaches.
- Reinforce our regional contributions towards the UNOC political declaration.
- Reflect on the opportunity to get our Minsters approve an Ocean Statement for endorsement by Leaders at UNOC.
- Set up partner coalitions to focus on Ocean Action Panel theme projects post UNOC3.
These are some of the preliminary issues I feel we as a region must prioritise and Im sure with the rich expertise available in the room and also online this week, we will be able to derive some solutions moving forward.
Colleagues, once again, a very warm welcome to you all and I look forward to the discussions and also having an opportunity to speak with you all during the course of the week.
Sulang.
