After two weeks of negotiations between more than 50 countries, the Fifth Session of the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) ended last Friday without establishing a High Seas Treaty — once again leaving more than two-thirds of the global ocean unprotected. But important progress was also made, which the Only One community of supporters has helped push for. World leaders are closer than ever before to finalizing the treaty, and there’s reason to be optimistic that the next negotiation will be the last step in the nearly two-decades–long process. We can’t let up the pressure now, and we need you with us! Can you help build momentum for the coalition to protect the High Seas by sharing our petition with your network? We’re just shy of our goal of 75,000 signatures.
To meet the Paris Agreement targets of keeping global temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels by 2050, 60% of proven hydrocarbon reserves must remain in the ground. To date, these “reserves” do not include the hydrocarbons in Antarctica where hydrocarbon-bearing sedimentary basins are well known.
Article 7 of the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (Madrid Protocol) bans all mineral resource activity in the Antarctic. While open-ended, the Protocol may be challenged after 2048, paving the way for future extraction opportunities and consequent international rivalries amongst the states present on the continent. While we may hope for a positive decision in 2048 not to seek access to Antarctic oil and gas thereafter, we are presently canalized into a pathway that may precisely allow this.
