NDC submission of EU and its member states
The Council today adopted the submission on the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) of the EU and its member states. The submission contains an updated and enhanced target of at least a 55% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared to 1990, following the guidance of the European Council on 10-11 December 2020. The submission will now be transmitted to the UNFCCC Secretariat.
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Access to Justice in environmental matters
The Council reached agreement on a general approach on a proposal to amend the Aarhus Regulation. The Aarhus Regulation sets out how the EU and its member states implement the international Aarhus Convention, which aims to guarantee access to information, public participation in decision-making and access to justice in environmental matters.
In the high seas, human activities are regulated by a patchwork of international legal agreements under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). But this piecemeal approach is failing to safeguard the ecosystems we depend on. Empty pledges A decade ago, world leaders updated an earlier pledge to establish a network of marine protected areas (MPAs) with a mandate to protect 10 per cent of the world’s oceans by 2020. But MPAs cover only 7.66 per cent of the ocean across the globe. Most protected sites are in national waters where it’s easy to implement and manage protection under the provision of a single country.
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Tuna fisheries in the eastern tropical Pacific are set to be left completely unregulated as of January 1, 2021, following a striking failure to renew key management measures by delegates to the annual meeting of the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC).
Delegates failed to secure the unanimous approval needed to renew catch limits for longline vessels, seasonal and spatial closures for purse seine fishing, and restrictions around the use of fish aggregating devices (FADs) for tropical tuna fisheries.
“All the things that are important to fisheries management are gone starting January 1,” says Grantly Galland, a member of the international fisheries project at the Pew Charitable Trusts who attended the virtual meeting. “It’s hard to overstate how concerning this is.”
Marine protection falls short of the goal. A UN treaty and lessons from Antarctica could help
Two-thirds of the world’s oceans fall outside national jurisdictions – they belong to no one and everyone.
These international waters, known as the high seas, harbor a plethora of natural resources and millions of unique marine species.
But they are being damaged irretrievably. Research shows unsustainable fisheries are one of the greatest threats to marine biodiversity in the high seas.
According to a 2019 global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services, 66% of the world’s oceans are experiencing detrimental and increasing cumulative impacts from human activities.
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