 Good morning, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen on behalf of the Institute for International and European Affairs. I'd like to welcome you to today's talk by Ambassador Peter Thompson, who is the UN Secretary General's Special Envoy for the Ocean. Ambassador Thompson will speak to us on the subject of the Ocean and Small Island Developing States. This is the seventh lecture in the 2021 Development Matters series, which is sponsored by Irish Aid. Ambassador Thompson will speak for about 20 to 25 minutes, and then we'll go over to the Q&A session with the audience. A few housekeeping points first, both of Ambassador Thompson's initial presentation and the Q&A session will be on the record. Please feel free to send in questions or comments as they occur to you during the event, and we will do our very best to get to them. You use the chat function at the bottom of the screen. Please also feel free to join the discussion on Twitter using the handle at IIEA. We will also be live streaming today's discussion, so a very warm welcome to those of you who are joining us via YouTube. We're delighted to have, as our guest speaker today, Ambassador Peter Thompson. Peter, in his role as the UN Secretary General's Special Envoy for the Ocean since 2017, has been driving global support for the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 14, in which, as you know, the world pledged to conserve and sustainably use the ocean seas and marine resources for sustainable development. Peter is the founding co-chair of the Friends of Ocean Action and is a supporting member of the High-Level Panel for Sustainable Ocean Economy. Peter is also former President of the UN General Assembly. He served during the year 2016 to 2017. He was the permanent representative of Fiji to the United Nations from 2010 to 2016, during which time he was also elected as President of the International Seabed Authority Assembly and Council. Peter was an early champion of what came to be known as the Sustainable Development Goals and I remember with great gratitude my close cooperation with him in that respect and in particular what he did as PGA to follow up immediately on the achievement of the STGs. He made that the centerpiece of his time as President of the General Assembly and really put the STGs on the map internationally while he was in that role. He's a close friend of mine and I'm delighted, as is Jill, that he has agreed to speak to the Institute this morning. He last spoke here in February 2019. Before giving Peter the floor, I'd like to ask Roy DeBurke, the Director General of Irish Aid, the Irish Government's Development Cooperation Program to say a few words. Roy? Thanks, David and hello Peter. It's really great to have this opportunity to welcome Peter and underline I think through the medium of Peter's presence, the importance which Irish Aid and the Department of Foreign Affairs attaches to questions around the ocean and small island developing states. Peter was in COP last week, we had a very good discussion with Minister Simon Coveney. I think building on a series of discussions including one in Cork a number of years ago at CFest where I think some important conversations took place including with John Kerry who has taken a particular interest in oceans questions and will be hosting very shortly his own our ocean conference in Palau while Peter is doing a one ocean summit in France and I think these pick up, I think the importance which we have to attach to our oceans. They are reservoirs, great reservoirs of biodiversity. They're also in a climate context, both a source of hope but also a source of challenge with sea levels potentially rising and bringing the very existence of a number of small island states into question over the next 20 or 30 years. Oceans are I think a really, really pregnant question for us all over the next period. For Ireland we describe ourselves as a small island from time to time but in the context of small islands actually we're quite a big small island. We are like most small islands, a big ocean state and I think if we take our entire territory into account including our territorial waters we're about the third largest country in the EU and I think that is a reminder to us of the power that we have in our waters but also the responsibility to protect and one of the ambitions which Minister Coveney has is that Ireland delivers on the promise to designate 30% of our territorial waters as a biodiversity reserve and that's a challenge which I think other countries are also beginning to pick up and if we do that we make a contribution to addressing climate change and biodiversity loss but not enough on its own merits. So one of the groups that we have become even more friendly with over the last few years has been small island developing states. In 2019 at Seafest we published our small island developing state strategy, the first time Ireland had such a strategy and that's been a really interesting series of conversations which we've taken forward with those countries. We as part of that strategy agreed to meet with representatives of small island states in what we call a Talanoa format which is a way of conversing. We put an Irish word on it, Cayley, which isn't about dancing, it's about partying and listening and it's about exchanging perspectives and I think one of the real learnings for us and one of the things which are really trying to build into our development programming and our broader foreign policy is the need to respond to the urgent crisis facing small island developing states around climate change and sea level rise and hopefully we lend not just our funding but also our voice and hopefully our help in addressing some of those questions. A few milestones coming up, the COP15 negotiations in Kunming and the UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon I think are really interesting moments when we can address ocean issues and I'm sure Peter will touch on them as he goes. So I think this is going to be a really interesting and learning and rich discussion. We're looking forward to what Peter says. I think there's a lot here that we will need to take forward in our diplomacy, in our rate policy over the coming years and I think Peter you're very welcome to double in for today's discussion. I really look forward to hearing what you have to say. Thank you. Thanks Rory. Peter, over to you. Thank you very much for those words of welcome and with the typical modesty, David, you didn't mention the fact when you're talking about the work we did on the Sustainable Development Goals that it was you and Ambassador Macharia Kamau of Kenya who guided us towards the, you know, one of the UN's great achievements in its existence which was the crafting of those Sustainable Development Goals and their universal adoption. What a year that was 2015 along with the Paris Agreement and you should be rightly acknowledged for your leadership in getting us there. And Rory, you made mention of those two ocean meetings so I'll just give you the dates for them and I was speaking to a special envoy Kerry and the President of Palau about them while I was in Glasgow last week and I will be going to Paris tomorrow in fact for meetings with the French government about their meeting. Now just to clarify, both these meetings of course are not UN meetings, but I have said to the organizers of both that they're very important lead ups to the UN Ocean Conference which will be held in Lisbon in the middle of next year. So just for the dates for them, for President Macron's one ocean summit, you've heard of his one planet summit, this is very similar to the organization of those, the one ocean summit will be held in Brest in France on the, let me get the correct dates here, the 11th and 12th of February and then five days later in Palau, the US and Palau will co-host the our oceans conference and that will be from the 16th to the 17th of February. So I'm assured everybody concerned that I'll be at both and I'm sure there'll be a lot of people like me who'll make the trek but of course not everybody is required to be at those meetings. Unlike the UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon where we are all required to be there, all 193 member states have mandated that and we all have responsibility for SDG 14's implementation. So I'm going to go to the text of my speech now David and for the mercy of our listeners I've chopped it down to about 12 minutes and with a view to you know spending more time on Q&A which most people are more interested in I think. So here we go, so ladies and gentlemen, first of all all because he's observed and many thanks to the Institute of the International and European Affairs for giving me the privilege of addressing you all. In my remarks to you today I will be talking primarily about the state of the Sustainable Development Goal 14 known as SDG 14 which as you know is our universal goal to conserve and sustainably use the oceans resources. In the course of these remarks I'll be drawn into the surge towards the sustainable blue economy which is now so evident around the world. As the world emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic it is crucial for the future of our kind on this planet that we ride this surge towards a healthy ocean. It comes at the right time but there can be no healthy planet without a healthy ocean and the ocean's health has been measurably in decline for some time now. I won't go too much into that decline in my remarks today but in case you're not fully aware we and I mean all of us have been party to driving the decline in the ocean's health. Thus it would be disingenuous where I to ignore it and what I have to say today. But first I ask you to consider how we're going to stop that decline. To start with we must govern our activities with a logical and ethical dedication to sustainability. We need to agree that time has come to accept that linear exploitation of finite planetary resources is a dead end street and we've reached a point on humanity's path where upon global transformation to circular recycling systems of production and consumption has become a straightforward matter of survival or not. What more must we do? We will have to muster courage and grasp the nettle of international consensus that is so sorely required at international gatherings these days. The UNFCCC COP26 in Glasgow made solid progress but there remains much more to achieve and we have begun working towards COP27 in Egypt for improving on targets to reach net zero carbon ahead of 2050. In Geneva in two weeks time at the WTO ministerial meeting we must be prepared to set aside selfish national interests and agree once and for all to remove harmful fisheries subsidies the scourge of marine ecosystems. In Nairobi in February at the UN Environment Assembly we must be ready to commence negotiations for an internationally binding treaty to end the plague of plastic pollution that we've unleashed upon nature. In Kunming in April at the UN Biodiversity Conference we must adopt a target to conserve 30% of the planet's surface by 2030 and at the UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon at the end of June next year we must be ready to put in place the science-based solutions necessary to stop the decline in the ocean's health. Sometimes it seems that all this multilateral talk is too slow, too nationalistic, too often resulting in stalemate but we have to ask ourselves what the alternative do is and I've yet to hear an answer to that question that would be palatable to the majority of us. Multilateralism ultimately works and I say that as a former president of the UN General Assembly who has on many occasions witnessed its stuttering progress. It is true that the private sector and some progressive countries move ahead of international consensus with hydrogen powered shipping a very good current example and as long as no laws are broken I think we can all agree that this is as it should be. Ladies and gentlemen allow me to expand a little on the subject of the next UN Ocean Conference. Under universal mandate from all 193 member states the United Nations the conference will be co-hosted by the governments of Portugal and Kenya in Lisbon 27 June to 1st of July. I hope to see many of you there. The UN Ocean Conferences exist to maintain the integrity of the implementation of SDG-14. Those of you who were present at the first UN Ocean Conference in New York in 2017 witnessed the bringing together many thousands of representatives of countries and civil society, science, youth and the business sector in a groundbreaking show of inclusiveness within the UN campus. It resulted in a great rising of global consciousness on the state of the ocean's health and the need for urgent action to support the targets of SDG-14. I've witnessed in the intervening four years a great flowering of action-oriented programs and organizations and movements and meetings all concerned to put in place the measures required to achieve SDG-14. So how are we doing on the implementation of SDG-14? In summary, not very well and I've pointed to that in the opening salvo of my remarks today. Lest there remains doubt in anyone's mind I ingrain the fact that SDG-14's nemesis is humankind's continuing burning of fossil fuels. The massive scale at which we burn fossil fuels creating the greenhouse gases blanketing our atmosphere are commensurately changing the composition of the ocean. The ocean has absorbed 90% of the heat from global temperature rises so it should not be a surprise that immense changes are underway and we now witness such phenomena as escalating marine heat waves and the death of coral reefs. The IPCC has reported that 70 to 90% of existing tropical coral reefs will be lost once we go through 1.5 degrees warming and that virtually all will be gone at two degrees. One asks how can you have a healthy ocean when 25% of its biodiversity is taken out in the form of tropical coral reefs? Coupled with ocean warming and the resulting expansion of H2O, global atmospheric warming is causing melting ice sheets to pour into the ocean with the result that rising sea levels are increasingly inundating low-lying coastal areas. It's quite tragic to contemplate that if present trends continue the 21st century will witness widespread saltwater engulfment of low-lying land of atolls and river deltas that for thousands of years have been home to biodiversity, food production and unique manifestations of human culture. Ladies and gentlemen in the face of this situation member states of the United Nations have instituted the UN Decade of Ocean Science which commenced this year with the aim of amassing knowledge of the ocean's scientific properties. It's estimated that the majority of these remain unknown to science and in their collective wisdom as I've said the member states have also mandated the second UN Ocean Conference to be held in Lisbon in late June next year. The mandated theme for the conference is scaling up ocean action based on science and innovation for the implementation of SDG-14, stock taking, partnerships and solutions and I have no doubt that like the first UN Ocean Conference in 2017 the Lisbon Conference in 2022 will be an ocean action game changer for the world based on that wise mantra we've been given of science solutions and partnerships. Ladies and gentlemen SDG-14 is a noble pursuit for us all to follow a pursuit that has at its heart the sustainable blue economy and an underlying ethos of living in harmony with mother nature. It is thus that I mentioned that falling on from the impetus generated by the sustainable blue economy conference that was held in Nairobi back in 2018 the UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon will keep the focus on the sustainable blue economy. On the shoulders of the conference we are organizing a sustainable blue economy investment forum in the adjoining city of Cascade which will have huge business sector relevance and focus and I'm sure that will be of interest to many Irish companies. Many believe that in the not too distant future the sustainable blue economy will be the basis of human security and as a loving grandfather I count myself amongst them. At COP26 in Glasgow I repeatedly stated in my speeches that we must move the climate finance needle in the direction of the sustainable blue economy. I'm pleased to say there's early evidence that the needle is moving. We don't want millions or billions of dollars to flow into the sustainable blue economy we want trillions of dollars. Why? Because we need those dollars to score the health of the ocean and thereby the planet and thereby the well-being of our grandchildren. We need the trillions of dollars to decarbonize the global shipping fleet and the ports that service it funding a transformation that has already begun moving from powering our ships with the filth of bunker oil to pollution free green hydrogen. We need the trillions of dollars invested to feed the future through sustainable aquaculture and farming the ocean to produce new sustainable nutritious forms of future food seaweeds phytoplanktons and other ethical non-fed forms of aquaculture. We need the trillions for the scientific research of the ocean that will help us understand the currently unknown properties that will secure our health in the post-antibiotic age. And we need the trillions because if we invest now in offshore energy in wind tidal wave and other ocean technologies we'll have all the renewable energy we need many times over to power our ways of life. Ladies and gentlemen to conclude my remarks I reaffirm that in the context of the COVID-19 recovery the transformative power of sustainable blue economy holds especially true for small island developing states. I was therefore very pleased in my meeting with the Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney at COP26 in Glasgow last week to hear that the Irish international development agenda places a high priority on supporting small island developing states as part of its a better world strategy and that the strategy specifically commits to supporting interventions directly related to the ocean and the blue economy. This is true to the word spirit and shared values of the our ocean wealth summit that the Irish government hosted for small island developing state representatives in Cork in 2019 that I was privileged to attend. The support given then by the Irish government to the existential concerns of small island developing states was deeply appreciated and it was doubly noticed and appreciated at COP26. And so as an island man I say long may the partnerships established in Cork endure building momentum as we battle on with the many challenges posed by the climate and ocean crisis. My personal commitment to assisting Ireland in the implementation of the goals set within these partnerships may be taken as a given and I thank you for your attention and look forward to the Q&A session. Peter thank you very very much for that inspiring exposition both on STG 14 and on the the wider challenges we face in relation to conservation protection of the ocean. Peter you were at I'll begin the Q&A session if I may but with a question of my own you were at COP last week. What was your sense of the impact which the final text will have on the chances of achieving STG 14? I mean how do you assess the contribution that COP has made to STG 14? Sorry I'm a little bit slow in answering because I'm unmuting my video because I've got a building next door so if you get the cable skill saw or drill you know what's happening. Look it was an interesting COP it was very different from any that I've been to before. You know I think there was the big difference was that those that used to come to the COPs basically to whiten the process for their own selfish interests or simply because they were flat earthers and believed that the whole thing was a hoax that's just gone away now. I mean they've gone off to their luxury villas or wherever it is that they seeing out their days and there wasn't that element present at all at COP 26. It was all about what we've got a massive existential crisis what are the solutions to get out of it and that's what our time was taken up in the solutions and I think that that is the name of the game going forward to Egypt and thereafter. To answer your specific question and just those that don't go to these COPs should be aware that there's sort of two elements to all COPs one is the inner element where a text is being negotiated between the parties the parties being you know the parties to the convention and the nations of course our national representatives and then outside of that inner sanctum is where the majority of activity let's say at the COP is taking place which is all these side events and you know people coming along displaying the latest renewable energy technology etc etc and the huge amount of exchange of information goes on there so and what I was just saying about how different this COP is it was in both those two spheres that you could see that that great difference I give credit to the UK government in terms of the leadership by the COP president that in the text side of things the negotiation of the text there was leadership shown which from our point of view the ocean community got us through the door and up to the top table where we have long been saying that the ocean belongs why do we say that because the climate is the creation of the atmosphere and the ocean and not to have the ocean in a climate meeting is just leaving out 50% of the equation so that's why we've been banging on that door all these years and and and in the last COP in Madrid the door was slightly open for us and as you know there was subsequent high-level dialogue in sub-star on the ocean and climate and so the door was open for us there but this COP we really got inside and if you look at the text you'll see that there's a strong language there which which will not go away now so I'm feeling very grateful for all those who made that possible many governments have contributed over the years I think of Fiji and Sweden I think of Chile and as I say the UK government has done a great job Peter thanks very much and a question from Mary Gallagher who asks does Ambassador Thompson think that stg-14 should be included in national tourism policies and strategies that's a very interesting question because you know I think the whole area of tourism I have to be careful what I say here because foreign change in my own country is heavily dominated by tourism we've been suffering badly during the COVID epidemic as a result and just to do a little segue my first paying job was as a boatman at a island resort in Fiji you know where the main thing was going up the reefs and snorkeling and things and I remember how bad people's practices were in those days you know people would break off coral to take it home as souvenirs or anchors that go crashing down on a beautiful coral reef you know people were wearing sunblock that was poisoning the coral all that stuff you know so uh you know I move on from that though because I think that you know countries with coral related tourism have come to treasure it if for no other reason than a revenue source from diving industry but um having done that little segue I kind of forget what the question was can you repeat it tourism tourism strategies whether sg-14 should be reflected in uh in national tourism plans yeah it is there in in relation to small island developing states at least developing countries that you know there should be assistance to them in a variety of things that includes tourism but generally speaking for the whole world absolutely yeah we've um you've got to make sure that tourism doesn't kill the golden goose and uh I think it's it's an it's one where you know we have some very big questions to ask ourselves about all this international travel it's very middle class development that's happened during my lifetime you know people didn't travel around when I was a kid uh the way they do today but as I said countries have come to rely on it for their foreign exchange so we're in a difficult position there and we have to examine it I think it's a good question it's a good suggestion and I'm going to try and bring elements of that into the lisbon conference Peter looking ahead over the next few months and you mentioned the various key multinational meetings coming up what do you see as the the main workload what would you be focusing on let's say heading up to lisbon well as you know ocean health is my preoccupation but that konming meeting as I said in my remarks you know the 30 by 30 is for the people must understand that 30 by 30 fits into the post 2020 strategic framework and there was a there was a leading up to 2020 we had this strategic framework where there were all the various targets actually that we stole from there and put in the SDGs a lot of them and it's targeting that where the world is trying to improve its performance in this thing so the post 2021 which has also been delayed because a cove is going to be adopted in konming in April and part of that one of the targets is this target of having 30 percent of the planet land and sea conserved and in protected areas so you know that is an interesting challenge for you to think about because in those previous targets that I had mentioned which we adopted into the SDGs one of them is SDG 14.5 to have 10 percent of the ocean in marine protected areas by 2020 you could call that 10 by 20 well we didn't get there we got to about just under 8 percent and I would happily go on the reasons why but I say principally because of the performance of Kamla in the in declaring marine protected areas in the southern ocean is why we missed out on that 10 percent but you know you have to ask yourself is 30 by 30 achievable we've got basically nine years thereafter to put it in place when we didn't get to 10 by 20 but you know is there a reason to back off the goal no absolutely not and I think one of the mechanisms that we can bring in as far as the ocean is concerned is to under the BB&J conference which listeners may know refers to the UN conference has been underway for a number of years and hopefully going to conclude early next year BB&J for biodiversity beyond national jurisdictions at Stansford that under that treaty that will emerge from that conference that we will have the ability to declare marine protected areas in the high seas and and enforce them so that's where I think our missing let's say 20 percent that we haven't got to yet will come from from the high seas great Peter thank you very much question here from Dara Moriarty of the Institute you described fossil fuels as the arch nemesis of SDG 14 in this context how disappointed were you to see India successfully getting the change made to the final text about about phasing phasing out going to phasing down you know it was a big disappointment it wasn't just India but the the factors were all in this together and I think the other really important point that I always make and is that you can't cherry pick the SDGs and as one of the guidance of that process David you know it's an integrated whole it's not something we just sort of came up with random ideas it's a package and so for countries that are struggling with poverty they can't imagine that you know the world's going to come rushing their assistance or that we're going to achieve those poverty goals if we're prepared to you know overlook other goals such as SDG 13 of getting climate change under control and the only way we're going to get climate change under control is to stop burning fossil fuels coal principally and therefore yeah it's disappointing but as I said in my remarks consensus is the way we move forward we have to respect our differences and come to consensus but you know grandchildren are grandchildren whatever country they live in and grandchildren are being convicted to a world of three degrees at the moment and coal has a huge part to play in that three degrees world whether we use it or not three degrees of world on fire we don't we should not be party convicting our grandchildren with that we have the ability by stopping burning coal to turn the corner on that and give them the security that intergenerational justice demands they have not from that and what we love in life you know why on earth do we exist if we don't love our grandchildren absolutely no I mean you know it comes through quite strongly I think in the messaging from from Carp as well and and the outcome what was the overall mood among the small island developing stage representatives there if you can if you can you know form a view I mean you as you say the the ocean community has such got to the top table but was there sort of general satisfaction or kind of a realistic sense that this is the best sids could get for the moment I mean how would you reflect their their their overall reaction to the summit look for sids it's like all developing countries you know we need the funds to do the adaptation and I don't want to point fingers but you know we all know where the greenhouse gases have come from and we all know where the most the money is on this planet and that money needs to be channeled to developing countries so they can undertake the adaptation required in the face of what's coming at us so there was a bit of disappointment there but as I said to you before that I feel the climate finance needle moving in the direction of the sustainable blue economy and for sids where the sids should take heart and I've said this to them is that when it comes to sustainable blue economy you know they are great ocean states and they stand to benefit hugely from the sustainable blue economy therefore moving that climate finance needle in the direction of the sustainable blue economy is going to be to their ultimate benefit and you know for example I had meetings recently with the the CEOs of both the green climate fund and the global environment facility and they both are very committed to this movement as well and you saw the beginnings of that with the 125 million that the green climate finance board last month allocated towards the global fund for coral reefs which is run by UNDP you know serious money starting to go into protection and restoration of coral reefs. Peter I have a question also about your reaction to the the disappointing outcome in terms of loss and damage at the summit in other words a perception that the wealthy countries were unwilling to recognize a fuller responsibility to developing countries in this area I know go slightly beyond stg-14 as such but did you get a sense that there was widespread unhappiness that more wasn't done in that area? Yes definitely true but as I said in my opening remarks you know multilateralism is a process the main thing for developing countries and SIDS is they don't back off on that demand because it's a legitimate demand they didn't cause this problem and therefore it's legitimate that they it's compensation basically for not for people to go on nice holidays the Riviera it's to build seawalls and to build alternate energy sources and food security and so on that's what the money is going to be spent on for the people. Thanks Peter. A question from Anthony Brogan do you think that a special report is acquired from the IPCC about ocean currents the example is given of AMOC I have to say this is new to me but Atlantic Mariginal overturning circulation given that any changes to the AMOC represent a potential tipping point on climate? Very interesting question you know I remember 20 years ago more than 20 years ago doing a lot of research on in this area I don't know what I think I was writing a book or something but that was like a science fiction thing this flowing of the Gulf Stream and all it just seemed like a science fiction scenario and I was seeing evidence of it that's where the question is coming to you there it's it's you know somebody who's looking at the evidence and saying my god this could have you know huge consequences for example for Scandinavia and Ireland and Scotland the west coast of Scotland and so on you know civilizations that have been built up really on the back of the warmth of the Gulf Stream and if the Gulf Stream is already being shown to be slowing you know and the inversion that's been referred to happens I don't know I've had discussions recently on this I'm assured that we should not be overly concerned but you know that's no reason for some good scientific research not to be carried out so I would not put the question off in any way and I would say you know this is something for wider discussion honestly before you set the IPCC to task you've got to assemble your argument very clearly but I think there's enough there it's not just an North Atlantic effect that of course it's around the world you know and our part of the world down in the southwest Pacific currents and temperatures and other factors that are part of climate change are causing the tuna through no fault of ours the tuna are just going to migrate out of our region in the 21st century three of the five commercial species are leaving they're going across the South American coast for a country like Tuvalu that's 90% of its foreign exchange just sorry guys conditions no longer suitable we're gone so these these changes in ocean conditions have huge impact on human societies and it's a very good question I would say worthy of development okay but um question from Stephen Frayn of the Institute uh do you believe that European Union countries through policies such as the European Green Deal and the common fisheries policy are heading in the right direction in terms of implementation of stg-14 I do but you know I don't think that the EU should get too self-congratulatory on this I don't think there's any grounds for that but uh you know I've had talks with Mr Timmermans and uh you know I'm full of admiration for the EU Green Deal yeah um question from Nayan McDonough uh well if it's more kind of a perhaps directed to all of us really what can we learn from our response to the pandemic which we can apply to the the time and crisis to the existential threat for SIDS and to the protection and restoration of the oceans and other lessons to be learned from how the world has been reacting to the COVID-19 pandemic sadly one of the reactions has been a re-embracement of plastic and plastic pollution you know we as a species of so you know I wouldn't say panic but in our um fear of what the COVID-19 represents we have happily re-embraced plastic as the best way of keeping ourselves uh you know wrapped and all the rest uh so what I would say is that we have to be braver we have to look at what we actually are doing with plastic in that regard uh to ourselves to our children uh anybody who hasn't heard about what microplastics are doing needs to read up on them they're entering our bodies and going across the blood-brain barrier and in true placental tissue and all the rest you know I'm sorry but uh anybody who doesn't know about that needs to upskill a bit but in terms of building back better as the saying goes yeah there's so much that we can do not to repeat old habits and I give that plastic as an example but um it's going to be a struggle let's let's let's be honest with ourselves but it's why I said earlier in my remarks we must be prepared to spend the trillions okay we all had relatives who died in the Spanish flu epidemic and this is similar to that uh we didn't have the same kind of money to spend that we'd have on this one but the fact is it's a blip on the human path but what we have come to in terms of our destruction of nature is not a blip it's an existential moment that humanity is facing in the 21st century and we have to make a move akin to the move from the stone age to whatever came next was it the iron age or the bronze age I've forgotten my education but we have to make that move from the industrial age to the recyclable recycling age and it's of the same scale it's global revolutionary shift or suffer the bitter consequences yes yeah um Peter a question here about uh ocean governance what scope do you see for sustainable ocean plans to manage the ocean area that each country has within its own national jurisdiction well some of you may have heard of the um high level panel for a sustainable ocean economy which had been working the last four years it's 14 heads of government and when I say heads of government I mean that they they attend in their personal capacity you know the president of Indonesia the prime minister of Japan the president of Chile the prime minister of Portugal the prime minister of Norway and the president of Palau co-chair the prime minister Fiji's member uh on I go there were 14 of them and in fact in our meeting because I'm a sort of honorary member of the panel to represent the UN um in our meeting in um Glasgow uh we were joined by Senator John Kerry uh who announced that President Biden would also be joining this high level panel and I understand President Macron is also considering uh so the point I'm making here is that this is a very high level panel which has commissioned vast amount of scientific report work of the last four years I can think of actually no other movement uh of of the similar scale in the last four years in terms of addressing the problems of the ocean anyway um the main outcome of all that work was a commitment by the 14 heads of government that their countries would all have in place sustainable ocean plans within their EEZs by 2025 and they encouraged all their peers around the world all other country leaders of other countries to at least by 2030 have 100 coverage of EEZs by sustainable ocean plans now why is that important it's plans uh first of all they have to be science-based so we're talking again a mantra here of science planning finance nobody's going to give you money if you haven't got a decent plan and that plan has to be based on science so uh the the development of the sustainable blue economy which I say is the future of humanity uh has to be based on good plans Peter um how how organized is civil society activism uh on the oceans uh you know around the world um I presume that they were much in evidence uh during COP 26 but I mean here for example there was a rather striking uh demonstration about a month ago with a slogan if the seas die we die and the people carrying kind of marked coffins through the streets of Dublin etc but I'm just I'm just wondering how you assess the the effectiveness of civil society players on this issue well uh you'll recall what I was saying there about the first UN ocean conference and how it inclusive it was and how civil society was you know a huge part of its success you know obviously civil society was active on ocean matters prior to 2017 but that UN ocean conference really uh unlocked the floodgates and uh in the intervening four years you've seen this real flowering of civil society action around the ocean uh I think politicians have latched on to it um some disingenuously you know they're not prepared to do the hard yards on things like stopping bottom trawling or declaring marine protected areas and so but they will always make sure that their remarks are always saying nice things about the ocean why because the ocean's our mother you know and if you're going to insult the ocean or you know or dismiss it or whatever people obviously aren't going to like it so no politician nowadays says anything bad about the ocean so uh then what is the future of all this as far as civil society is concerned well absolutely they have to apply themselves and what I really like seeing in civil society now is the way that the youth are so engaged in uh ocean action uh because that's obviously what's going to carry us into the future I have a little granddaughter living with me here in London uh she's uh her grandmother's uh indigenous fijian and it just turns me up to think that this island you know ringed by a coral reef where my family has lived for generations and her grandmother's family have lived for thousands of years we'll have no living coral around it if we continue on this path that is set for us now and that's not some sort of prophet of doom stuff this is the IPCC telling us that and WMO telling us that and so we've really got to wake up and you know I want my granddaughter to be able to snorkel the way I did through coral canyons of beautiful fish and and uh just see that teeming life but uh yeah we've got a lot of work to do and make that happen exactly Peter a question here about uh a debate that we've been having in our industry about applying for observer status in the Arctic Council I mean I know it's one part of the of your brief as aware but um what role do you see for the uh Arctic Council in protecting the wealth of uh oceans preserving the wealth well I think you can double that question up and and say Kamala as well for the South Pole and what interests me is the Arctic Council and and Kamala both made up of member countries and that those member countries are a very small minority of us involved right and the Arctic Council it's a bit more clear because it's countries that are within the Arctic Circle but at the same time you know that's they are in a sense they are stewards for the rest of us and if the rest of us look on and say well these guys are doing a lousy job you know for example these marine protected areas in the southern ocean when they've been scientifically proven to be uh required uh Kamala agreed many many moons ago that they should uh be a program for increasing marine protected areas but for four years now we've been absolutely stall blocked meeting after meeting no no can't be done so what I would say you know coming from a small island developing status you know the question's being asked is why the heck are we leaving it to these guys to decide on marine protected areas in the poles when there is only one ocean and what happens there directly affects us in terms of our marine life in terms of our sea levels etc one ocean so that question is being asked and I would say both the Arctic Council and the Kamala you know you're being watched by the rest of us and we expect to see responsibility being exercised yes I think I mean the the general issue of climate justice you touched on it has come through very strongly from COP and in the messaging and obviously Mary Robinson here has been a leading champion on that subject and you know responsibility towards the the young towards today's generation is a major part of that can I come back to the issue of private sector investment in the in the sustainable blue economy when you were president of the General Assembly I remember that you organized an kind of an intensive uh felt like a week of time was the amount of activity but an intensive focus on stg-14 and its wider potential do you think that COP has all COP 26 has also directed attention more vigorously to the commercial opportunities which exist for business in in in developing sustainable economy I mean I wasn't there but I'd like to think almost that that the private sector involvement which will be essential for building that economy I'd like to think that it is now more fully realized recognized yes the first event that I spoke at in Glasgow two weeks ago was a shipping event getting global shipping to zero emissions and you know I gave my usual polemics but then the next speaker was the representative of the big ferry company in Scandinavia and it struck me that you know he was so far ahead of everything I just said and that you know his company which was putting out tenders for hydrogen powered ferries and was putting out tenders for a hydrogen production plant and was putting out tenders for bunkering facilities for hydrogen and I think 15 ports up the coast you know that they're so far ahead of governments uh private sector and so many of these things and you know I find that very uplifting because I think it's probably always the way things have been you know entrepreneurship and and you know the exercise of proper responsible capitalism is what's taken us forward it's not governments the impulse is usually followed and the two ideally the two go hand in hand and there's obviously an enabling role for things like the transition to green hydrogen that governments have to play but it's it's private sector and that is obviously true for the health sector as well you know we wouldn't have got there in our covid via the vaccination thing without the private sector it's obviously true in the food sector especially and one of the most fascinating conversations I had was sitting next to the chap who's the founder of impossible meats you know who make the plant-based hamburgers that are now widespread around the world now making impossible pork and impossible chicken and selling that into Asia and so all plant-based you know imagine a government trying to do that it just wouldn't happen so that's private sector and as I say ahead of the game as long as no laws are being broken then that's the way it should be I guess yeah you know that brings us towards the end of the session unfortunately and I'd like to thank you only for taking the time I know you're between major conferences as where you've hardly been able to catch breath but thank you very very much for speaking to the institute today and sharing your your insights we look forward very much to seeing you in person back here when when circumstances permit I'm sure I speak for Rory de Birken saying that Ireland will continue to be very very supportive of what you're doing and the Irish aid program will will will continue with the priorities which Simon Coveney outlined to you so you you can rest assured of that but on behalf of the institute I'd like to thank you very very much for talking to us today and covering such a vast spectrum of issues so thanks a lot Peter look forward to seeing you again soon appreciate it David and and I say again thank you to Ireland for staying true to its word in what it's doing with the small island developing states and I look forward to seeing many of my Irish friends in Lisbon end of June next year