Despite overwhelming evidence that offshore oil and gas activities pose significant threats to marine biodiversity at every stage, the folks at Earth Insight criticized French President Emmanuel Macron for not acknowledging these threats during his opening remarks this week at a UN conference on ocean protection hosted in France.
The 2025 UN Oceans Conference (UNOC) in Nice, France, is taking place this week, and Macron addressed thousands of ocean experts, diplomats, heads of state, scientists and civil society leaders. This conference says it “aims to support further and urgent action to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development and identify further ways and means to support the implementation of SDG 14.”
In their opening remarks, Macron and conference leaders acknowledged the historic nature of this event and the importance of doing more to better protect oceans and coastlines around the world. However, Earth Insight noted that there was no mention of fossil fuel extraction and its impacts on ocean health, local communities or the climate.
This comes on the heels of new mapping and analysis, published by Earth Insight and international and regional partners, visualizing the threats posed by future coastal and offshore fossil fuel expansion threats to frontier biodiversity hotspots and coastal communities across the pantropics.
The report also identifies TotalEnergies, a French energy company, as also playing an outsized role in offshore and coastal expansion projects, with findings suggesting that the company is involved in three out of 11 proposed projects reviewed in the report’s case studies, notably in Namibia, Mozambique and Papua New Guinea.
According to Earth Insight Executive Director Tyson Miller:
“This glaring omission demonstrates that the impacts of fossil fuel extraction on marine biodiversity and coastal communities continue to be overlooked. Our research clearly shows that offshore oil and gas activities pose existential threats to critical species, coastal communities, and the climate. France has an opportunity to seize this historic moment and show leadership once again, as it did in 2015 with the Paris Agreement, by calling on countries to end the expansion of offshore and coastal fossil fuel activities.”
