On January 22, 2020, Greenpeace, an international environmental organization in Beijing, invited Oscar queen, French actor Marion Cotillard, Chinese actor Ni Ni, and Swedish actor Gustaf Skarsgård to participate in the Antarctic maritime expedition, witnessing that the climate crisis is also an ocean crisis, by advocating "protecting the ocean is climate action" and launching a global action. Contribute to the goal of protecting at least 30% of the world's oceans by 2030.
Greenpeace Global Ocean Ambassador Ni Ni
Among them, Chinese actress Ni Ni will board Greenpeace International's "Polar Dawn" research vessel on January 29, 2020, to experience a 13-day maritime scientific expedition that has undergone rigorous environmental assessment, and participate in a series of scientific expeditions from teams of scientists from the United Kingdom, the United States and other countries, including:
Revisiting the habitat of the cap-and-cap penguin, which is extremely remote and rarely studied since the 1970s, more than 40 years later, to study the long-term impacts of climate change and fishing activities on penguin species;
Collect scientific data on Antarctic cetaceans through underwater listening devices to understand their population status, and study biodiversity in relevant areas by collecting and analyzing environmental DNA (EDNA);
Through the sampling and analysis of snow and seawater, witness the pollution caused by human activities far away from Antarctica to the pure Antarctic.
The ocean is vast and important: it occupies 71% of the Earth's surface, nurtures and supplies countless lives, including humans, and has an irreplaceable role in regulating, stabilizing and mitigating the effects of climate change:
The ocean absorbs 90% of the excess heat to keep the Earth's temperature stable; at the same time, the ocean produces half of the earth's oxygen and absorbs 1/3 of the carbon dioxide produced by human activities, which greatly mitigates the impact of carbon dioxide emissions on climate change.
But the oceans are also fragile: currently, only 4.8% of the world's oceans are designated as marine protected areas. The vast majority of the oceans are still threatened by overfishing, plastic pollution, and the loss of sea ice, warming, acidification and hypoxia caused by climate change.
In the face of important and fragile oceans, scientists call on us to establish at least 30% of the world's oceans as marine protected areas by 2030 in order to protect and restore marine biodiversity and marine ecosystems, so as to continue to play an important role in the oceans' climate and humanity.
© Greenpeace
(Photo: One of the programmes planned by the MpIP network under the "30% Conservation Target" scenario of Greenpeace International's April 2019 report 30×30: Blueprint for Global Marine Conservation)
Protecting the oceans has reached a critical time. From 23 March to 3 April 2020, the United Nations will convene the 4th Intergovernmental Meeting on the Development of a Legally Binding International Instrument in New York, United States, on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity beyond areas of national jurisdiction (BBNJ), which will determine whether delegations can develop a robust global high seas conservation agreement that will lay the foundation for the future establishment of a global network of fully protected marine protected areas;
In October 2020, government delegations will gather in Kunming, China, for the fifteenth conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity to discuss the post-2020 global marine conservation target, and whether to achieve "protect at least 30% of the world's oceans by 2030", and will also give answers after that.
The climate crisis is also an ocean crisis, and ocean protection is climate action. Greenpeace hopes to join global ocean ambassadors from all over the world in calling on governments, academics and the public to join forces in protecting the oceans.
This project has been temporarily registered as an activity in Beijing
"Actions make a difference"
Positive Change Through Action