Resident academic Prof. Alan Deidun from the Department of Geosciences within the Faculty of Science recently formed part, as Malta’s Ocean Ambassador, of the Maltese delegation to the same conference, held in Lisbon, Portugal. The conference was formally opened on Monday 27 June 2022 by UN General-Secretary Antonio Gutierrez as well as by the President of Kenya and the Prime Minister of Portugal, given that the latter two countries were co-hosts of this landmark event.

The UN’s General-Secretary stressed the fact that the ocean can generate 40 times more renewable energy and can deliver 6 times more food if sustainably managed. The same keynote speech also dwelled on the fact that SDG 14 (Life Below Water) is the lowest recipient of funding amongst all 17 SDGs.

Besides morning plenary meetings, the conference also featured a large number of side-events, including the first formal physical gathering of adherents to the Global Ocean Decade Alliance, which seeks to leverage funds to sponsor the ‘science the need for the ocean we want’ till 2030. The Lisbon conference is the second UN Ocean Conference, which was supposed to be held in 2019-2020 but which was postponed on numerous occasions due to the COVID pandemic and following the first UN Ocean Conference, which was held in the US and which was co-sponsored by Fiji and Sweden.

UN Ocean Conferences are meant to promote the implementation of the SDG 14 actions, especially when the insidious threat to marine biodiversity posed by seabed mining is looming every more starkly.

Besides Prof. Deidun, the Maltese delegation was also composed of staff from the PRUN (Permanent Representation of Malta to the UN in New York), including Ambassador Vanessa Frazier and Ms Francesca Cassar, staff from the Maltese Embassy in Lisbon, including Ambassador John Camilleri and Mr Mario Buttigieg.