Following the ceremonies of the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings, the President of the French Republic Emmanuel Macron hosted the President of the United States Joseph R. Biden Jr. in Paris for a State visit.

The two presidents reaffirmed several joint policies and initiatives, including those on Plastic pollution, Biodiversity and Ocean Protection. An extract of the statement from the Presidents is below:

Ocean Protection

France and the United States support entry into force of the Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction before the next UN Ocean Conference in Nice, June 2025.

France and the United States remain actively engaged in ensuring effective protection of the marine environment from harmful effects which may arise from deep seabed mineral exploitation and reaffirm their commitment to taking a precautionary approach to potential mining of marine minerals.

Plastic pollution

The Presidents are committed to taking ambitious actions throughout the full life cycle of plastics to end plastic pollution and call upon the global community to do the same, with the aspiration to reduce the global production and consumption of primary plastic polymers. They urge the global community to finalize, by the end of 2024, an ambitious and effective international legally-binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment, based on a comprehensive approach that addresses the full lifecycle of plastics.

Biodiversity

France and the United States emphasized the need to take urgent action to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 and conserve, protect and restore critical ecosystems, including forests and other wooded land, wetlands such as peatlands and mangroves and ocean, that are the main natural carbon sinks and biodiversity reservoirs.   In particular, they committed to work together towards the conservation of 30 percent of terrestrial and marine areas by 2030, both at bilateral and multilateral levels, in line with the Global Biodiversity Framework adopted by Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity at the Fifteenth Conference of Parties and to the achievement of its goals and targets.

The full statement from the White House can be read here.