The 2025 United Nation’s Ocean Conference is to be held in Nice, adding to the growing list of important international events looking to the city to put on a good show.
The role of hosting the 2025 United Nation’s Ocean Conference, one of the biggest marine protection conferences in the world, has been awarded the city of Nice, it was announced by President Emmanuel Macron last week. The news came with word that the event will be co-organised by France and Costa Rica.
The selection of Nice was of little surprise to those in the know. During the 2022 Salon des Maires – also known as the Mayors Meeting – last November, the Var Matin news outlet reportedly overheard Macron promise Nice’s mayor, Christian Estrosi, that his city would be given “two major international meetings on the scale of a COP or a G20”.
“This is fair recognition of Nice’s commitment to the preservation of marine environments,” said Estrosi following the announcement. “The choice of the President of the [French] Republic to have Nice as the host city of this international summit, just a few months after its entry into the World Heritage of UNESCO, also attests to the ability of our city to welcome the biggest international events in the service of best promoting our country.”
Nice is a good option for events of such large scale, having managed several in recent years, including part of the Tour de France in 2020. Earlier this year, Nice was also picked to be a prize Ironman location, a post it will hold for four years, and it will also be where the final leg of the Tour de France will be held in 2024, replacing Paris, which will be busy with the 2024 Olympic Games.
The last United Nation’s Ocean Conference was held in Lisbon and co-hosted by Portugal and Kenya. Though the agenda has not been announced for the 2025 meeting in Nice, it should be noted that France and Costa Rica have a long-standing relationship of collaboration in the areas of sustainable management of the ocean and the improvement of marine governance, notably having worked together on the Alliance for the Conservation of Rainforests and on the Blue Carbon Coalition.
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Photo source: Ville de Nice / Facebook