The ocean, key to the climate transition (Dryades/EcoTechTalks)
02 April 2025
Spearheaded by students from the TéléTalks and Make A Difference – Télécom Paris associations, this initiative illustrates the growing commitment of our student community to thinking about major environmental challenges with scientific rigour, curiosity and ethical responsibility. [Video]
Science at the service of the oceans
In this talk, Romain Troublé showed how on-board science, environmental diplomacy, open data and digital technologies can work together to better understand and protect living things.
The students’ powerful words set the tone: the oceans regulate our climate, produce more than two-thirds of the oxygen we breathe and mitigate climate change. And yet they are suffering. Their impoverishment – like the accelerated melting of ice or the collapse of marine biodiversity – is not inevitable, but a warning signal that science can transform into action.
What Romain Troublé has conveyed to us is the power of onboard science, of sharing open data and of a vision in which technology becomes a tool for knowledge and preservation.
The Tara Ocean Foundation has been criss-crossing the seas for over 20 years aboard the schooner Tara, which has become a veritable floating platform for interdisciplinary research. It collects previously unpublished data and makes it available to research worldwide, embodying a form of environmental diplomacy at the service of the common good.
Its major expeditions – from the study of plankton to the mapping of microplastics and the analysis of the marine microbiome – have led to the creation of an open-access ocean database that is now used by researchers around the world to better understand the impacts of climate change.
A message deeply aligned with our values at Télécom Paris:
interdisciplinarity, openness and sustainable innovation at the heart of our training and research [our core mission].
This scientific exploration is also made possible by digital technologies: sensors and data collection, satellite observation data, increasingly powerful analysis instruments and the ability to analyse results on a large scale thanks to AI, telecommunications networks enabling scientists to stay in contact across the globe, etc. All these fields are where Télécom Paris conducts research and trains scientists of the highest level. These are just some of the areas in which Télécom Paris conducts research and trains scientists of the highest calibre.
Initiated by the students of the Télécom Paris associations, Dryades, the EcoTechTalks are a series of conferences designed to raise awareness and educate users at Paris-Saclay on critical issues, focusing on solutions that respect both people and the environment.
Sources: posts LinkedIn from Télécom Paris and from Patrick Olivier
Video in French with English subtitles
Photos and video Michel Desnoues, Télécom Paris