During Group of Seven (G7) Science and Technology Ministerial Meeting in Japan, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Arati Prabhakar represented the United States in signing on to a Communique that among other things notes that scientific innovation connecting biological and physical science and economic “should support the measurement, within official statistics, of natural capital accounts and the implementation of the System of Environmental Economic Accounting.”
The Communique also called on the G7 to “demonstrate leadership” in areas including better understanding the functions of the seas and the ocean in the context of climate change and other anthropogenic stressors including pollution and over-exploitation of resources, including illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing.
The Communique specifically endorses G7 Future of the Seas and Ocean Initiative Working Group efforts to better understand the ocean-biodiversity nexus, sustaining and enhancing the Global Ocean Observing System, development of the Digital Twins of the Ocean, international cooperation on Arctic and Antarctic research, implementation of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, pursuit and implementation of science-based solutions to ocean challenges, and development of sustainable ocean ecosystems and a blue economy.
