More than 30 countries along the Atlantic Ocean are forming a partnership to cooperate on issues including technology, a sustainable ocean economy and climate change, the White House announced Tuesday.
The Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation involves nations from four continents and was forged on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York.
The partnership is designed to boost cooperation on issues such as commercial fishing while recognizing warming waters and rising sea levels could pose serious challenges.
“This is the first multilateral entity of this scale open to all Atlantic nations, connecting four continents,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told participants at a ministerial meeting in New York on Monday evening. “And at a time when there is doubt about our ability to come together around a common cause, we are showing with this initiative that it is indeed possible.”
He said the first priority would be to promote ocean science and ways to combat plastic pollution while training the next generation of Atlantic researchers.
“The Atlantic connects and supports us like never before. More commercial and maritime traffic across the Atlantic than on any other ocean. More data travels along its undersea cables than in any other ocean. More than half of the world’s fisheries are found there. In summary, the Atlantic is an ocean of opportunity and an ocean that connects us in multiple ways,” Blinken said.
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“I think it’s also fair to say that we are linked by common challenges,” he said. “It is the warming and cooling of the Atlantic that determines global climate and weather trends. And as the ocean warms and sea levels rise, this in turn disrupts marine ecosystems and the communities that depend on them, threatening livelihoods and exacerbating food insecurity.
The White House said the partnership builds on last year’s Joint Statement on Atlantic Cooperation, which laid the groundwork for a formal partnership.
Beyond technological and climate issues, the partnership will reaffirm each nation’s territorial integrity and uphold its commitment to international law so that member states “are free from interference, coercion or aggressive action.”
The partnership includes Angola, Argentina, Brazil, Cape Verde, Canada, Costa Rica, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guatemala, Guinea , Guyana, Iceland, Ireland, Ivory Coast, Liberia and Mauritania. , Morocco, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Portugal, the Republic of Congo, Senegal, Spain, Togo, the United Kingdom, the United States and Uruguay.
