Thank you Mr. Chair,

I am Silvia Ribeiro speaking on behalf of the ENGO- Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice.

We would like to emphasize three key aspects in these Dialogues:

1. We urge you to not narrow the importance and multiple functions of marine and coastal ecosystems to concepts such as “blue carbon” that reduce ecosystems only to carbon sinks. This is especially dangerous in the light of the pressure to commercialize oceans functions calling them services or credits to sell in new carbon markets.

2.   There are currently more than 40 outdoor marine geoengineering experiments planned or underway, most of them conducted for commercial purposes, which violate UN Treaty decisions and the rights of indigenous peoples and coastal communities.

It is essential that UNFCCC, honoring the precautionary approach, rejects any form of geoengineering applied to marine and coastal ecosystems, including so called “ocean carbon removal technologies” such as seaweed and biomass industrial cultivation and sinking; enhanced alkalinization of the ocean, ocean artificial upwelling; as well as other geoengineering technologies on marine ecosystems, like marine cloud brightening and albedo enhancement involving reflective particles.

In doing so, UNFCCC should recognize and uphold the decisions taken by the Convention on Biological Diversity establishing a de facto moratorium on the deployment of geoengineering techniques that may affect biodiversity (decision CBD X/33 (w)) and the London Convention and London Protocol amendments from 2008 and 2013 related to marine geoengineering techniques.

The London Protocol has since 2022 taken up the evaluation of the impacts on the above mentioned geoengineering techniques, and stated in 2023 that they have “ the potential for deleterious effects that are widespread, long-lasting or severe; and there is considerable uncertainty regarding their effects on the marine environment, human health, and on other uses of the ocean”, signaling their intent to extend regulation to this broader suite of technologies.

This Convention must avoid legitimizing marine geoengineering under Article 6.4  guidance on carbon markets – recognising that a key factor in banning experiments under the LC / LP is the commercial element. 

3.         The Ocean Dialogues and UNFCCC needs to recognize the main actors in maintaining the biodiversity of marine and ocean ecosystems: the indigenous peoples and coastal communities, whose traditional knowledge and livelihoods have conserved and increased biodiversity in these ecosystems. Their right to Free Prior and Informed Consent must be affirmed and honored for any activities and techniques that are proposed to be developed in ocean and marine ecosystems that would affect their territories.