OceanCare Makes Waves at ChangeNOW 2025 Summit in Paris

On the summit’s opening day, Nicolas Entrup, OceanCare’s Director of International Relations, joined the “Road to UNOC” panel, alongside Daniela Fernandez, Founder of the Sustainable Ocean Alliance, and Joachim Claudet, Senior Researcher and Ocean Advisor at CNRS. CNN’s Senior International Correspondent at CNN Melissa Bell moderated the discussion, which provided a valuable platform to highlight critical ocean protection needs ahead of the UN Ocean Conference.

During the panel, Nicolas Entrup emphasized the importance of consistency in international commitments: “We do have decisions in place (…) this is why we have teamed up, we’ve got support from over 100 NGOs around the world from 6 continents calling governments to commit to ban oil and gas exploration in the ocean. That’s not a very bright and brave and radical ask, that is just a consistent ask [with existing decisions] to go forward to UNOC.”

Following the panel, Nicolas was interviewed by the Austrian public broadcaster ORF, providing an opportunity to share OceanCare’s perspective on ocean protection with a broad audience.

Throughout the summit, the OceanCare team connected with numerous participants and speakers who expressed support for our “Because Our Planet Is Blue” campaign and the open letter calling for a ban on fossil fuel exploration in marine environments. Among those engaging with our initiative were climate activists Luisa Neubauer, Clover Hogan, and Xiye Bastida, as well as environmental leaders Elena Doms and Sandrine Dixson-Declève.

As a gesture of appreciation for their valuable contributions to environmental protection, we presented our “Because Our Planet Is Blue” art book to key influencers at the summit. This modified coffee table book, which beautifully captures the Ocean’s splendour while symbolically depicting human-caused destruction, was shared with Pascal Canfin, French MEP and former Minister of Trade, as well as with Rose-May Lucotte, co-founder and COO of ChangeNOW. These presentations symbolise our recognition of their efforts toward our shared goal of protecting the planet and helped convey the urgency of Ocean conservation through a powerful visualisation.

These valuable connections and conversations will help strengthen our collective voice as we approach the UN Ocean Conference in Nice this June, where OceanCare will continue advocating for concrete commitments to protect our blue planet.