India's Stakes at Nice UN Ocean Conference, 2025

INDIA'S participation in the ongoing UN Ocean Conference at Nice comes at a time when its coastal states are increasingly recognizing the strategic and economic value of oceans.

- IPSITA DASH

With its extensive coastlines and significant dependence on the monsoon cycle, India is positioning itself as a key player in global ocean governance, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region. It can now proactively contribute to IOC's global coordination mechanisms, especially in the areas of data sharing, ocean services, and regional observation efforts. Multilateral cooperation is essentially required in addressing challenges such as sea level rise, marine pollution and biodiversity loss.

The conference seeks concrete plans and funding to address a 'marine emergency' with its current year's theme "Accelerating action and mobilising all actors to conserve and sustainably use the Ocean". It marks a global moment of unity in celebrating the ocean as the world's greatest treasure and wonder. "While the earth is warming, the ocean is boiling", were the inaugural remarks of Emmanuel Macron, the French President "The deep sea is not for sale, neither Greenland for sale, nor Antarctica. To save the seas, the first answer is multilateralism", he said. "There should be an open partnership between science and research to protect the world's oceans. The climate, like biodiversity, is not a matter of opinion, but it is a matter of scientifically established facts", added the French President.

The oceans are the largest global commons. They are the life support systems of the planet earth. The UN Decade of Ocean Sciences for Sustainable Development (2021-30) took up a number of measures. The first UNOC took place at New York in 2017 and the second at Lisbon in 2022.