History, economy and climate. Oceans are ″a great challenge for Portugal″
“The oceans are a great challenge for Portugal and a great challenge for the whole world”, considers Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa in statements to TSF, in anticipation of the Anniversary Conference of Jornal de Notícias “Mar, door to the future”.
“Portugal was made in the oceans and the oceans are essential in the Portuguese identity”, recalls the President of the Republic. Furthermore, “they unite the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CPLP) and are a common point for all the CPLP States”.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa country “has an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and an extended continental platform that will be one of the largest in the world and will serve, in proximity, as the largest terms in Europe”.
These characteristics are a great “capacity for exploitation in economic terms, but also for research, for the preservation of biodiversity. Basically, for the fight against climate change.”
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At this point, the oceans are a “topic of the future” for the entire world, the head of state assumes. “It is not by chance, at a time when there is one – as great powers, directly or contractually, that are at war – that no dominion of the oceans was possible for a universal one, with the full agreement of the United Nations.”
This declaration will be approved at the Ocean Conference, which will host Lisbon from June 27 to July 1, with the participation of 20 governments from around the world.
This “at a time when there are no agreements on anything, even other areas of climate change have retreated or stopped”, he reinforces. “In political, military, economic and social terms, it’s time for an agreement. What was happening in terms of the destruction of the oceans.”
The oceans are “a fundamental point also for Portugal because we have some of the best specialists – inside and outside in the field of the oceans”, adds Marcelo Rebe de Sousa.
The President of the Republic will be the first speaker at the Conference that marks the 134th anniversary of Jornal de Notícias – “Mar, door to the future”, this Thursday at the Cruise Terminal of the Port of Leixões.