30 nations commit to protect oceans at Brest summit

BREST, France: Around 30 government chiefs committed on Friday to protect the world’s oceans from harmful human activities at a summit in French port city of Brest, aiming to coordinate through a year packed with international action on the sea.

The gathering of heads of state and other senior officials as well as companies "has allowed us to firm up many commitments and new coalitions of public and private actors and states," French President Emmanuel Macron said.

Priorities included a hoped-for global treaty on protecting biodiversity in the high seas -- waters lying outside any one country’s jurisdiction -- and action to prevent plastic pollution. The European Union’s 27 member states and 16 other countries formed a coalition to reach a high seas agreement this year, Macron’s office said after the meeting.

"We are so close, but we need to push" to get the treaty signed in 2022, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen told the Brest summit. After coronavirus delays, the hope is for a fourth and final round of UN negotiations to reach agreement in New York in March.