The oceans cannot wait any longer. We must act.
Em Brest, cidade litorânea da França, oitenta nações se reuniram para firmar compromissos coletivos em defesa dos oceanos — ecossistemas que cobrem mais de dois terços do planeta e sustentam a vida de bilhões de pessoas. O encontro, presidido por Emmanuel Macron, reflete uma consciência crescente de que o mar não pertence a nenhum país, mas que sua destruição é responsabilidade de todos. A ausência do Brasil — detentor da décima quinta maior costa do mundo — lembra que o alcance de um pacto se mede não apenas por quem assina, mas por quem escolhe ficar de fora.
- Os oceanos perdem 9 milhões de toneladas de plástico por ano e têm apenas 8% de suas águas protegidas — números que tornaram a cúpula em Brest uma questão de urgência, não de protocolo.
- Líderes mundiais se dividiram entre presença física e mensagens de vídeo, enquanto o Brasil, com uma das maiores costas do planeta, não enviou sequer um representante.
- A coalizão de alta ambição saltou para 83 países comprometidos em proteger 30% das áreas marinhas e terrestres, e o fundo contra poluição plástica dobrou para 4 bilhões de dólares.
- Organizações ambientais protestaram do lado de fora, acusando os governos de 'blue washing' — belas palavras sem ação proporcional à escala da crise.
- A cúpula de Brest é apenas o primeiro ato: reuniões em Nairóbi, Nova York, China e Lisboa ao longo de 2022 precisarão transformar promessas em tratados vinculantes.
Na cidade costeira de Brest, oitenta países assinaram os Compromissos do Oceano de Brest, prometendo intensificar a proteção dos ecossistemas marinhos, combater a pesca ilegal e enfrentar a poluição por plásticos e químicos. As nações signatárias representam mais da metade das zonas marítimas do planeta. O encontro foi convocado pelo presidente francês Emmanuel Macron, que presidiu mais de quatro horas de negociações com chefes de Estado, ministros e executivos de grandes corporações ligadas à economia do mar. O Brasil, apesar de possuir a décima quinta maior costa do mundo, não enviou delegação e não participou de nenhuma das discussões.
Entre os avanços concretos, a Coalizão de Alta Ambição para a Natureza e as Pessoas ganhou trinta novos membros, chegando a oitenta e três países comprometidos em ampliar as áreas protegidas de 8% para 30%. Uma iniciativa separada reuniu os 27 países da União Europeia e mais treze nações para avançar na governança do alto-mar — a vasta extensão oceânica fora de qualquer jurisdição nacional, historicamente explorada sem controle. A Iniciativa Oceano Limpo teve seu financiamento dobrado para 4 bilhões de dólares até 2025, voltados ao combate dos 9 milhões de toneladas de plástico que entram nos mares a cada ano. Vinte e duas empresas privadas se comprometeram a reduzir emissões de navios e poluição sonora subaquática.
Do lado de fora do evento, organizações ambientais protestaram contra o que chamaram de 'blue washing' — retórica polida cobrindo ações insuficientes. O Greenpeace lembrou que a França, segunda maior potência marítima do mundo, poderia fazer muito mais. A Sea Shepherd criticou o papel da União Europeia como maior importadora de pescado global, metade proveniente de países em desenvolvimento. Outras entidades levantaram preocupações sobre mortes de golfinhos em redes de pesca francesas e sobre a mineração de fundos marinhos.
Brest foi apenas o ponto de partida. Ao longo de 2022, conferências em Nairóbi, Nova York, China e Lisboa deverão avançar em acordos sobre plásticos, alto-mar e biodiversidade. Os céticos alertam que a distância entre o que se assina e o que se implementa ainda é enorme — e que o tempo que os oceanos têm para esperar é cada vez menor.
Eighty nations gathered in the French coastal city of Brest on Friday to sign what they called the Brest Ocean Commitments, a pledge to intensify efforts protecting marine ecosystems, curtailing rampant resource extraction, and tackling the plastic and chemical degradation poisoning the world's seas. The countries represented more than half of the planet's maritime zones. The summit, orchestrated by French President Emmanuel Macron during France's rotating presidency of the European Union, drew forty-one political leaders—including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, U.S. climate envoy John Kerry, and the presidents of Portugal, Egypt, and Colombia. Several other major figures, among them German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, sent video messages affirming their commitment to the cause. The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres did the same. Brazil, despite possessing the world's fifteenth-longest coastline, sent no delegation and participated in none of the discussions.
Macron, campaigning for reelection while chairing the summit, spent more than four hours in multilateral negotiations involving heads of state, government ministers, and executives from major international corporations with economic stakes in ocean industries—shipping, tourism, logistics. "We can make historic decisions. They must begin today, in Brest," Macron said. "This year of 2022 must be the limit, because the oceans cannot wait any longer. We must act."
The commitments announced represent a coordinated escalation across multiple fronts. The High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, launched by France in 2021, gained thirty new members, bringing its total to eighty-three nations. These countries committed to expanding protected marine and terrestrial areas from eight percent to thirty percent of their jurisdictions. A separate coalition of the twenty-seven European Union member states plus thirteen other nations launched a new initiative focused on high-seas governance—the roughly forty-five percent of Earth's surface beyond any nation's legal control, where exploitation has historically operated without meaningful restraint. The fourth round of United Nations negotiations on a binding agreement for high-seas resource management is scheduled for March in New York.
Illegal fishing received particular attention. The practice currently accounts for nearly one-fifth of all fishing activity globally, undermining efforts to establish sustainable harvesting that preserves fish stocks. New signatories committed to ratifying maritime safety standards set by the International Maritime Organization and to strengthen enforcement operations against illegal fishing in their waters. The Clean Ocean Initiative, the largest coordinated effort to reduce plastic pollution in the oceans, saw its funding doubled to four billion dollars through 2025, with the European Investment Bank joining as a new contributor. The money will finance prevention and collection operations targeting the nine million tons of plastic waste entering the seas annually.
Twenty-two major private-sector actors pledged investment in reducing ship emissions and underwater noise pollution, improving waste management, and accelerating vessel recycling. European and Mediterranean nations will petition the International Maritime Organization to establish low-sulfur emission zones. France and Colombia jointly launched an initiative promoting "blue carbon"—the carbon-sequestration capacity of coastal ecosystems like mangrove forests.
Outside the summit venue, environmental organizations staged protests, accusing the gathering of "blue washing"—polished rhetoric masking insufficient concrete action. Greenpeace pointed out that France, as steward of the world's second-largest maritime domain after the United States, could do far more. Lamia Essemlali, president of Sea Shepherd Europe, criticized the European Union's role as the world's largest fish importer, with half those imports sourced from developing nations. The coalition Seas at Risk highlighted dolphin deaths in French waters caused by fishing nets and gear. France Nature Environnement expressed concern about deep-sea mining, increasingly attractive to pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries seeking mineral wealth from the ocean floor.
The Brest summit marks the first in a series of multilateral meetings scheduled throughout 2022 to advance ocean protection and governance. A conference in Nairobi later in February aims to reach an international agreement on plastic reduction. Negotiations will continue at the United Nations in New York on a high-seas treaty, followed by the UN Biodiversity Conference in China in April and a dedicated ocean-governance summit in Lisbon in June. The commitments signed in Brest are intended to accelerate these parallel tracks of negotiation, though skeptics note that the gap between pledges and implementation remains vast.
Citas Notables
This year of 2022 must be the limit, because the oceans cannot wait any longer. We must act.— Emmanuel Macron, French President
The European Union is the zone that most imports fish. Half of them come from developing countries.— Lamia Essemlali, president of Sea Shepherd Europe
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why was Brazil's absence so notable? It seems like a country with that much coastline would be central to any ocean conversation.
Brazil holds the fifteenth-longest coastline in the world, which gives it enormous leverage and responsibility in these discussions. Its absence signals either indifference or a deliberate choice to stay outside the consensus being built. That matters because ocean protection requires participation from the nations that actually control the waters.
The summit produced a lot of commitments—coalitions, funding pledges, private-sector promises. How do we know any of it will actually happen?
That's exactly what the environmental groups outside were asking. They called it "blue washing"—beautiful speeches that don't necessarily translate into enforcement or real change. The commitments are real on paper, but implementation depends on whether countries actually ratify agreements, fund operations, and hold themselves accountable.
Nine million tons of plastic entering the oceans every year—that's staggering. Does four billion dollars actually address that?
It's a start, but it's mostly about prevention and cleanup after the fact. The real problem is that plastic keeps being produced and discarded at scale. The money helps, but it's treating a symptom while the underlying system keeps generating waste.
What's the significance of the high-seas negotiations? That seems like a separate issue.
The high seas are essentially lawless—forty-five percent of Earth's surface where no country has jurisdiction. Fishing, mining, dumping, all happen with minimal oversight. A binding agreement on how those areas are governed could change everything, but it's also where national interests collide most sharply.
So what happens next? Does Brest actually change anything?
It sets a framework and creates political momentum going into the other summits scheduled for 2022. But real change depends on whether countries follow through when they go home and face the economic and political costs of actually protecting their oceans.