As greenhouse gases continue to be pumped into the atmosphere, our ocean is rapidly deteriorating. Yet when it comes to climate action, protecting the planet’s biggest ecosystem remains overlooked and underfunded. In response, the UN is renewing ambition to accelerate climate-ocean action — including through the Ocean Decade and Sustainable Development Goals — before it’s too late.

The ocean appears to be reaching a tipping point. For the past year, sea surface temperatures have shattered records daily. Ninety percent of the globe’s big fish populations are depleted. Half of the coral reefs are destroyed. The triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss is pushing Earth, especially life below water, to the brink of extinction.

“The consequences are becoming unignorable,” says Jessie Turner, Executive Director of the International Alliance to Combat Ocean Acidification (OA Alliance), a network hosted at the UN Foundation that represents more than 130 government and nongovernment members, comprising 225,000 miles of coastline and nearly 300 million people worldwide. While the bleaching of coral reefs is one of the most visible signs of the world’s oceans in crisis, for the most part, we don’t fully see what is happening underwater. Even so, warning signs have gone unheeded for years. Turner cites a UN report published in 2013 that described the ocean becoming “hot, sour, and breathless” because of rising sea surface temperatures, declining pH trends, and slowing currents.

“The ocean is a massive heat and carbon sink. Ocean currents redistribute the heat being absorbed and help with global carbon cycling, supporting the regulation of Earth’s climate,” says Kerrlene Wills, Director for Ocean and Climate at the UN Foundation. “The exchanges between the atmosphere and ocean influence everything from daily weather patterns to long-term climate trends.”

Reports from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) show that ocean warming, ocean acidification, and oxygen loss will continue to increase in the 21st century at rates dependent on future emissions of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas. However, scientists, governments, and communities are still working to understand the scale and complexity of the damage these compounding threats are wreaking on the globe’s most unexplored, unprotected, and uniquely vital habitat.

1. THE OCEAN IS BARELY MENTIONED IN THE HISTORIC PARIS AGREEMENT.

Despite its crucial impact, the ocean is mentioned just once in the 7,300-word Paris Agreement, the landmark UN treaty passed in 2015 that serves as a universal blueprint for climate action. Led by a diverse coalition of civil society leaders, the OA Alliance and the UN Foundation are part of a multilateral movement to correct that omission.

“Most climate change policymakers are terrestrially trained; they are not focused on the ocean and coastlines,” Turner says. “They are not aware of ocean acidification as a consequence of excess carbon emissions, or the global implications of a warming ocean.”

We could lose 90% of the world’s coral by 2050, Turner says, and the net productivity of our ocean is in decline. “It’s not just about diving and tourism and seeing beautiful places. It’s also about nurseries for keystone fisheries that many coastal communities rely on for sustenance,” she says. “All of this has huge implications for our current assumptions on what it means to feed a growing population.”

One of the biggest opportunities for the Ocean Decade of Ocean Science (2021–2030), Turner says, is bridging the divide between policymakers and scientists on climate and ocean change impacts and response, which she notes “should be a continuous conversation” as the deadline draws near.

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2. THE OCEAN IS CRITICAL TO ALL LIFE ON EARTH, YET GOAL 14 — LIFE BELOW WATER — REMAINS THE LEAST FUNDED OF ALL 17 GLOBAL GOALS.

The ocean covers 70% of the Earth’s surface and produces nearly half of our oxygen. It regulates the planet’s air, temperature, and water cycles. It’s the main source of protein for more than 1 billion people and a major economic driver: The shipping industry transports 80% of all goods on our shelves, and ocean-based industries will employ some 40 million people by 2030.

Yet of all 17 Sustainable Development Goals, SDG 14: Life Below Water remains the least funded. Meanwhile, SDG 14’s sub-targets — among them restoring coastal and marine areas, reducing marine pollution and ocean acidification, and increasing scientific knowledge — have only become more urgent.

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MJ Altman and Dynahlee Padilla-Vasquez, United Nations Foundation, 6 June 2024. Article.

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