Grandstand. The Mediterranean has been the sea of all passages and all commerce since Antiquity: it represents only 1% of the surface of the seas of the globe, but it concentrates 25% of maritime traffic and 30% of oil traffic. Its biodiversity is unique in the world, 500 million people inhabit its coasts and yet the delay in the protection of nature and populations is major. Our common garden is dying, and we cannot remain silent.
Mayors of municipalities that surround the Mediterranean Sea – this heritage, the cradle of our humanity – we see the ecological drama that is unfolding every day. We affirmed it in September 2021 during the congress of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature [à Marseille] : the Mediterranean Sea is a jewel in danger.
The result is already before our eyes, the Mediterranean basin is on the front line in the face of climate change: heat waves, floods, droughts, devastating fires, rising waters. Added to this is the air pollution caused by the boats, sometimes outdated, which cross it, and those who are docked there.
And it is those who live in grace and with her who pay the price. These climatic and ecological disasters affect our nature and our fellow citizens, in particular the most fragile. Faced with fatality, we oppose an unfailing political will.
Our mobilization echoes that of actors from civil society, States, the European Union and international institutions.
Obsolete and dangerous ships
Together, we are calling for the adoption as soon as possible of a regulatory zone for atmospheric pollutant emissions, known as the ECA zone, in the Mediterranean, to combat air pollution from ships and reduce the acid rain that falls on our sea and our coastline. [Ce dispositif impose à tous les navires circulant dans le périmètre des normes plus sévères en matière d’émissions polluantes.] A decade after the establishment of ECA zones on the east and west coasts of North America, after also the Caribbean, the Baltic, North and China seas, there is an urgent need for action. Through this call, we want to bring the voice of citizens who live on the front line on all shores of the Mediterranean and influence the discussions that will take place in a few months.
We, mayors of Mediterranean cities and ports, can no longer accept the massive pollution caused by the circulation of obsolete and dangerous ships, which seriously harms the health of populations, contributes to global warming, participates in the loss of biodiversity and undermines the attractiveness of our territories.
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