One Ocean Summit: Looking Back on the 3-Day Event
The One Ocean Summit, held in Brest from February 9 to 11, 2022, counted more than 100 countries representing all sea basins. President Emmanuel Macron launched the event during the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union, with the support of the United Nations.
This meeting built on the One Planet Summit held in January 2021. Today more than 30 additional countries have joined the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, and 84 countries aim to protect 30 % of the world’s land and sea by 2030.
Over the three days, a number of important figures committed to ocean research, such as well-known explorer Jean-Louis Etienne, the Italian Minister of University and Research Maria Cristina Messa, as well as members of Wista (an association of women in leadership positions in the maritime sector), were able to exchange views with researchers and scientists.
The Summit also saw a commitment to end plastic pollution in the oceans from European banks (EBRD and EIB) and development banks in France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
Joining Forces to Develop Sensors
In addition, Christophe Prazuck, former Chief of Staff of the French Navy and current Director of the Ocean Institute, took part in an official One Ocean Summit workshop. He spoke about the importance of increasing the number of ocean observations: "To increase the number of observations, we need to increase the number of biological sensors. Within the framework of Plankton Planet, researchers from the marine stations of Sorbonne University, the CNRS and Stanford University have joined forces to develop sensors with a dual constraint of technical performance and frugality.
“Ultimately, our goal is to invite young researchers in marine biology from Sorbonne University to embark on French naval vessels with these sensors in order to study the oceanic microbiome that contains most of the marine biodiversity and regulates the ecology of our planet.”
The One Ocean Summit was also an opportunity to present the Coalition for the Eco-Energy Transition of the Maritime Sector (T2EM), a project led by the French Maritime Cluster in partnership with the Ministry of the Sea and the French Agency for Ecological Transition (ADEME), of which Sorbonne University is now a member.
Finally, this major global meeting about the preservation of the oceans enabled Sorbonne University researchers to work on developing future research projects with new collaborators. A meeting was also held between representatives of marine universities and the Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, Frédérique Vidal.
The Invisible Life of the Ocean
One Ocean Summit included the event "The Invisible Life of the Oceans,” which invited members of the general public to discover the hidden life that can be found in the oceans aboard the Garonne, a French Navy ship moored in the commercial port of Brest.
Organized by the Ocean Institute of the Sorbonne University Alliance, Ifremer, the French Navy and the international consortium Plankton Planet, this unique event brought together scientists, economic actors, local authorities, politicians, and members of the general public. It also reinforced Sorbonne University’s commitment to working towards a sustainable future for our oceans.
More than 450 visitors were able to discover the latest technological innovations for observing plankton, and the new generation of "frugal" sensors using “fuzzy logic” that will enable uniform and cooperative measurements of the invisible life of the oceans.
Many children were also able to learn and play, thanks to the “planktoscope,” a microscope developed by Plankton Planet.
