Canada-France Declaration on the Ocean

Meeting in Ottawa on September 26, 2024, Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, and Emmanuel Macron, President of the French Republic, announced their intention to promote the development of a partnership on the ocean.

Canada and France are ocean nations. With extensive coastlines, vast exclusive economic zones, and rich economic and scientific communities that have developed an intimate knowledge of the ocean, our countries are aware of the growing pressures and damage to the ocean worldwide, particularly as a result of climate change, plastic pollution and the over-exploitation of marine resources.

We will strengthen our cooperation to ensure that the ocean, which is a common good for humanity, continues to play a crucial role in regulating environmental balances, particularly climate, providing essential food and energy resources, facilitating economic exchanges, and serving as a vital link among countries and human communities. As partners in numerous international forums, we are determined to work together to continue driving global momentum on the ocean, including through the G7, G20 and other multilateral forums, and notably the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021 to 2030), and the third United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC) to be held in Nice in June 2025.

Getting to know the ocean better

Canada and France recognize the importance of and continue to strengthen their collective understanding of the ocean, through strong research and science collaboration, to support the common goal of a healthy and sustainably managed ocean.

We note that, to date, the global community has fallen short of targets and goals set under various international agreements, treaties and frameworks. To ensure future success in responding to the escalating ocean crisis, decision-makers need both political will and the best available knowledge to inform decisions.

To meet this challenge, we will work to strengthen the knowledge base for decision making, including through contributions to existing processes, such as the Second World Ocean Assessment, as well as exploring the creation of a new International Panel for Ocean Sustainability (IPOS), as a neutral and independent entity under the aegis of the United Nations, to address any knowledge or policy gaps, and the transition of Mercator Ocean, a comprehensive repository of ocean observations, into an intergovernmental organization.

We will pursue our scientific exchanges to enhance knowledge of the ocean, where exploration and understanding of its impact on climate and biodiversity remain largely incomplete. To this end, we will draw on the Franco-Canadian working group on the ocean, created as part of the Canada-France joint committee for science, technology and innovation launched in 2023, under the responsibility of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), which recommends, among other things, the sharing of research infrastructures and scientific data from measurement campaigns.

The French national institute for ocean science and technology (IFREMER) and Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans will continue to advance our ongoing cooperation on ocean science. We will also deepen existing cooperative ventures, such as the partnership between IFREMER and Université Laval and the partnership between the Ocean Frontier Institute and the Interdisciplinary graduate School for the blue planet (ISBlue). We will benefit from the work of the France-Québec Institute for Scientific Cooperation in Support of the Maritime Sector, set up in 2016 as an essential body for sharing knowledge and expertise on the ocean between French-speaking scientists.

Protecting the ocean

In order to achieve United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14, France and Canada reaffirm their commitment to promote a clean and healthy ocean while developing a sustainable ocean economy and are committed to protecting the ocean from the effects of climate change, ocean acidification, marine pollution, including plastics, and the over-exploitation of marine resources, and to preserving the environmental, climatic, food, energy and economic benefits provided by the ocean.

We are committed to protecting the ocean by expanding marine protected areas (MPAs), in line with the Kunming-MontréaI Global Biodiversity Framework's goal of protecting land and 30 per cent of the ocean by 2030. In that regard, France and Canada will continue to support the activities of the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People (HAC for N&P) by providing their financial and expert support. We recognize that achieving this global goal will require effective collaboration, and should be based on strong qualitative standards, such as those elaborated in Canada and France. With France having already achieved its domestic goal, with 33% of French waters covered by at least one MPA, and Canada working closely with our partners to protect 30 per cent of our oceans by 2030, with over 15 per cent of our oceans formally protected, we have protected together over 4.3 million square kilometers of ocean.

Building on the existing partnership between Parks Canada and the French Office for Biodiversity, we will deepen our cooperation by sharing our respective experience in extending our network and effectively managing our MPAs, notably with the aim of achieving 10% of areas under strong protection.

We recognize the need to preserve the health and integrity of the ocean, and in particular the high seas and seabed, which represent over 60% of the ocean's surface and almost half the surface of the globe. We were instrumental in the adoption of the High Seas Treaty in 2023. Our two countries that have already signed the Treaty, support its entry into force by June 2025 (third UNOC), which requires ratification by at least 60 States. We will continue to cooperate on the effective implementation of the Treaty's measures, through support for the adoption of the development of large-scale MPAs on the high seas, environmental impact assessments for human activities beyond national jurisdictions, a system of equitable access to marine genetic resources or the transfer of marine technologies to developing countries.

Canada and France will continue to take strong action to combat plastic pollution, including in the marine environment. Our two countries are committed to take ambitious actions in that regard throughout the full lifecycle of plastics, with the aspiration to reduce and, as appropriate, restrain the global production and consumption of primary plastic polymers, and call upon the global community to do so. We support the conclusion of an ambitious and legally binding international agreement to end plastic pollution and were proud to both have hosted critical negotiation sessions, the 2nd session in Paris in May 2023 and the 4th session in Ottawa in April 2024. As founding members of the Ocean Plastics Charter, as well as the newly established Host Country Alliance, we will continue to advance political momentum to support efforts to conclude the agreement by the end of 2024. We will keep going forward including through the G7, G20 and other multilateral forums, and notably the third UNOC in Nice in June 2025.

As fisheries are a significant pressure on targeted fish stocks and their associated marine ecosystems more broadly, sustainable management of capture fisheries based on the best available science and on the precautionary and ecosystem approaches is central to our individual and collective efforts to protect the ocean. Canada and France commit to continuing their long-held tradition of collaborating for this purpose, with respect to marine living resources near Newfoundland and Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, as well as regarding more broadly fish stocks managed through regional fisheries management organizations.

The fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing is a priority shared by Canada and France, as this practice is a significant threat to marine ecosystems and the health of fish stocks. We will continue our cooperation in this area in order to share information, exchange best practices, and share expertise and technologies, notably satellite-based, to combat these practices in our territorial waters and in support of other partners who request it.

We will jointly support the IUU Action Alliance, launched by Canada at the Second UNOC, and will mobilize to reinforce existing frameworks (Port State Measures Agreement and Regional Fisheries Management Organizations), in particular through the implementation of regulations in force. Further recognizing the global need to address harmful subsidies that support IUU fishing and contribute to other unsustainable fishing practices, we will promote the ratification and implementation of the 2022 World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies (AFS) and continue to engage constructively at the WTO in support of the full achievement of SDG 14.6.

We will work to combat lost or abandoned ghost fishing gear, which considerably affects the availability of the resource, traps marine animals and pollutes the ocean and coastlines.

Innovating for a healthy ocean

Canada and France benefit from rich ecosystems of research and innovation in marine technologies, which should help achieve their common goals of protecting the ocean and developing a blue economy.

We wish to strengthen the synergies between our two ecosystems to encourage exchanges and innovation. To this end, France will put in place an international technical expert in Halifax, hosted by the Ocean Frontier Institute (Dalhousie University) who will make their expertise available to build lasting links between Canada and France in ocean research, innovation in marine technologies, the blue economy and support for diplomatic initiatives relating to the ocean.

In a world affected by climate change, the maritime sector offers solutions to combat the increase in greenhouse gas emissions, in particular, through the decarbonization of maritime transport. To that end, we are committed to working together to accelerate decarbonization of maritime shipping, in line with the 2023 IMO Strategy on Reduction of GHG Emissions from Ships, in particular through the conclusion of a bilateral partnership for transport cooperation. The Canada-France joint committee for science, technology and innovation has set up a working group dedicated to the energy transition, the results of which could help identify solutions.

Canada and France are strongly committed to the development of marine renewable energies, which offer major opportunities. As part of its multi-annual energy program, France has set a target of 50 wind farms in service by 2050, representing an installed capacity of 40 GW, several of which have already been inaugurated, involving Canadian investors and energy companies. For its part, Canada clarified the applicable regulatory framework in 2023 and is working on the development of offshore wind farms. We will also continue to cooperate on the development of tidal turbines, exchanging information on our respective projects for a pilot tidal turbine farm at Raz-de-Blanchard in France and tidal turbine testing in the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia.

We will continue to strengthen our partnership in marine technology innovation, notably through the initiatives of the Franco-Canadian platform In2novation, whose call for marine technology projects (“OceanTech”) will support four Canadian and French companies and their collaboration with research centers. We will be working to build a genuine Franco-Canadian innovative community in marine technologies and will be seeking to promote it at the 2025 UNOC in Nice.