Mexico calls to protect the oceans and their biodiversity

From the editorial

Newspaper La Jornada
Saturday February 12, 2022, p. eleven

The Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Marcelo Ebrard, yesterday summoned world leaders to protect the oceans and their biodiversity.

The foreign minister participated, on behalf of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in the high-level session of the One Ocean Summit (International Summit on the Protection and Preservation of Seas and Oceans), held in Brest, France.

The session was led by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and was attended by the US presidential special envoy for climate, John Kerry; the secretary general of the United Nations Organization, António Guterres; the Vice President of the People’s Republic of China, Wang Qishan, as well as heads of state, leaders of multilateral institutions and business leaders and civil society.

Foreign Minister Ebrard pointed out that We are here because it is a call from President Macron for action, for immediate action, and we firmly believe that this year we could achieve, if we propose it among all the countries represented here and others that are connected, to have a global governance instrument to what we call international waters.

That there be an instrument that shows that we can create global governance to protect biodiversity and the oceans, and we want to fight, Mexico and many other countries, to have that global instrument that ratifies that we can govern the world in a different way, that it makes sense multilateralism, that we can achieve it, that we can achieve ithe emphasized.

He stressed that The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States has as a strategic objective this year to reduce plastic, pollution, preserve biodiversity, but we need to have that instrument this year, a common instrument, global governance.

Ebrard ended with a call to the international community to protect the oceans, it is time to act, and that is why Mexico is here with you today.