Spain’s Ministry for the Ecological Transition will host in Madrid 10-11 April Before the Blue COP, an event co-organized by the Because the Ocean initiative.
The event will start on 10 April with an Opening Dialogue with Spain’s Minister for the Ecological Transition Teresa Ribera, and Chile’s Environment Minister and President of COP25 Carolina Schmidt, followed by a Special Address by HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco (video), and a Round Table discussion with Ambassador Peter Thomson, Special Envoy of the UN Secretary General for the Ocean; João Aguiar Machado, Director General of DG MARE, European Commission; Manuel Barange, Director of Fisheries and Agriculture, UN FAO; and Sebastien Treyer, CEO, Institute on Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI). This entire session (10h30-13h00) will be open to registered members of the public, with a view to disseminating knowledge arising from the work undertaken under the aegis of the “Because the Ocean” initiative, and the opportunities provided by UNFCCC COP25 in Santiago, Chile.
This will be followed by a two-days technical workshop (by invitation only) for experts, in both fields of ocean and climate to explore the inclusion of ocean elements in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement.
The Madrid session is part of a process started in 2017, including workshops in Bonn (COP23, 2017), Latin America (Santiago Chile, 2018) and
the Pacific (Suva, Fiji, May 2019). The output from these sessions is expected to be an assessment of potential Ocean elements in NDCs to ensure that the Parties’ NDCs promote, as appropriate, ambitious climate action in order to minimize the adverse effects of climate change in the ocean and to contribute to its protection and conservation (2nd Because The Ocean Declaration COP22, 2016).
It is expected that the final assessment will be released when the IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and the Cryosphere is adopted (September 2019), also coinciding with the UN Secretary General’s Climate Summit in New York, before COP25.
Those interested in attending the public session on the morning of 10 April can register at: info@BecauseTheOcean.org
Policy and scientific experts interested in taking part in the technical workshop on 10 and 11 April can also apply at the same address.