Events

The Annual Meeting 2021 in Lucerne-Bürgenstock will be held around the theme of “The Great Reset”. The meeting will focus on the solutions required to address the world’s most pressing challenges. Global leaders will come together to design a common recovery path, to shape “The Great Reset” in the post-COVID-19 era and rebuild a more cohesive and sustainable society.

The Ocean Visions 2021 Summit May 18-21, 2021 “Towards a Global Ecosystem for Ocean Solutions” will bring together a multi-sector community of researchers, innovators, decision-makers, funders, and more to develop roadmaps for solving great ocean challenges including ocean-based solutions to climate, equitable coastal solutions strategies for resilience and adaptation, marine circular economies, ocean & human health, and how to transform research from academia into sustainable businesses.

Capitol Hill Ocean Week (CHOW), hosted by the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, convenes policymakers, scientists, managers, business leaders, conservationists, educators, students, and members of the public to engage in dialogue and debate on significant issues that impact our ocean and Great Lakes and to propose innovative policies and partnerships to address these issues. The conference builds bridges, elevates key voices and thought leaders of different backgrounds, perspectives, and disciplines, and facilitates an exchange of ideas on how to keep our ocean and Great Lakes healthy and productive.

The UN World Oceans Day 2021 theme is, "The Ocean: Life and Livelihoods." The virtual gathering aims to shed light on the wonder of the ocean and how it is our lifesource, supporting humanity and every other organism on Earth.

The 11th MARE People and the Sea Conference will focus on the theme: Limits to Blue Growth? For decades sustainable development has served as guiding concept for policy makers, including those concerned in coastal and ocean governance. At the same time, the ‘blue economy’ and ‘blue growth’ have nowadays become popular concepts in marine policy. Notions on blue growth especially ask attention for new uses of the oceans, such as renewable energy (wind at sea), deep sea mining and deep-sea fishing but also aim at highlighting ecosystem services that have societal value (coastal protection, CO2 storage and biodiversity). The concept aims to reconcile two seemingly opposing uses of the oceans: exploitation and conservation, in the same way as was intended with the use of ‘sustainable development’. The concept also seems to promise that there still is a new, not yet reached frontier for economic expansion.

The ICRS regularly brings together more than 2,500 of the world's leading coral reef scientists, early career researchers, conservationists, policy makers and reef managers to present the latest research findings and exchange current knowledge fundamental in advising international and national policies in the conservation and sustainable use of coral reefs. In more than 50 years of history, ICRS 2020 will be the first ICRS to be held in Europe. The University of Bremen is proud to host this 14th International Coral Reef Symposium and cordially invites the global coral reef community to visit Bremen and participate in ICRS 2020.

In 2021, UN Secretary-General António Guterres will convene a Food Systems Summit as part of the Decade of Action to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. The Summit will launch bold new actions to deliver progress on all 17 SDGs, each of which relies to some degree on healthier, more sustainable and equitable food systems. The Summit will awaken the world to the fact that we all must work together to transform the way the world produces, consumes and thinks about food. It is a summit for everyone everywhere – a people’s summit. It is also a solutions summit that will require everyone to take action to transform the world’s food systems. Guided by five Action Tracks, the Summit will bring together key players from the worlds of science, business, policy, healthcare and academia, as well as farmers, indigenous people, youth organizations, consumer groups, environmental activists, and other key stakeholders. Before, during and after the Summit, these actors will come together to bring about tangible, positive changes to the world’s food systems.

The Conference of the Parties is the governing body of the Convention, and advances implementation of the Convention through the decisions it takes at its periodic meetings. To date the Conference of the Parties has held 14 ordinary meetings, and one extraordinary meeting (the latter, to adopt the Biosafety Protocol, was held in two parts). From 1994 to 1996, the Conference of the Parties held its ordinary meetings annually. Since then these meetings have been held somewhat less frequently and, following a change in the rules of procedure in 2000, will now be held every two years.

For the first time, the UK will host the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) at the Scottish Event Campus (SEC) in Glasgow on 1 – 12 November 2021. The climate talks will be the biggest international summit the UK has ever hosted; bringing together over 30,000 delegates including heads of state, climate experts and campaigners to agree coordinated action to tackle climate change.

The First International Ocean Data Conference will address the following draft list of topics: 1. The Global Ocean Data Ecosystem: status and way forward 2. Data system networking and interoperability technology and methodology: status report 3. Identifying data and information user needs at the national level 4. Joining multi-sectoral data: experiences and required action 5. Best practices in data and information management 6. Global data sharing : changes in data sharing policies 7. The IOC Ocean InfoHub: experiences and next steps 8. The future of global databases: what’s next for WOD, OBIS,… 9. Data products and services: new developments 10. The small island dilemma: collecting, managing, sharing and using data with minimum resources 11. Including indigenous and citizen science data into the global data ecosystem 12. IODE 60th anniversary

IMPAC is an international forum to discuss marine protected areas (MPAs) that assists in the establishment and management of MPA networks by informing, involving, and influencing stakeholders. The congress happens every four years and brings together marine conservationists, managers, practitioners and scientists from across the world to share their experiences and knowledge of marine conservation and marine protected area establishment.