The Center
Focus on Red Sea corals at GESDA summit 2024
Red Sea corals were on the forefront of the 4th Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipation Summit, held at CERN Science Gateway in Geneva from 9 to 11 October 2024. The Red Sea corals, that have demonstrated an exceptional resistance go global warming, and the initiative to preserve them led by the Transnational Red Sea Center since its creation in 2019 at EPFL with the support of the Swiss Foreign Ministry.
The initiative was one of the themes of this year's summit, entitled ‘The Great Acceleration’, and focusing on the need to anticipate the potential of key scientific breakthroughs and the related ‘Augmentations’ that they might enable in the next five, ten or 25 years, be it augmenting human longevity, augmenting ecosystems resilience or augmenting knowledge itself.
As on his first appearance at the 2021 summit, Prof Anders Meibom, Director of the TRSC, was able not only to reiterate the vision behind the TRSC's action - a regional approach to conservation issues, with the support of Swiss diplomacy as part of its scientific diplomacy - but also, and above all, to outline the developments made possible by this original approach: more Red Sea countries endorsing this vision, more field work involving top notch technologies in close collaboration with regional partners, and more tech transfers to these partners through educational and capacity building workshops.
The panel ‘Bridging Science and Diplomacy for the Future of Corals - Red Sea Reefs of hope - a case study’, opened by Ambassador Alexandre Fasel, State Secretary of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, also included Emma Camp, Team Leader at Future Reefs Program, Fanny Douvere, Head of UNESCO's World Heritage Centre's Marine Programme, Dr Kristen Marhaver, Project Director & Associate Scientist at Marhaver Lab, and Tamaki Bieri, Chief Operating Officer at Coral Gardeners.
Such a panel as part of the summit was ideal for promoting the TRSC's vision to scientific, philanthropic and government leaders from around the world.
Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA) is an initiative of the Swiss federal government and its mission is to bring together key players from policy, science, diplomacy and innovation to anticipate scientific and technological advances and, based on them, to develop jointly inclusive and global solutions for a sustainable future. The annual GESDA Summit provides an ideal platform to assess these global contributions and to foster dialogue on future opportunities and risks.
