The importance of the world’s oceans cannot be overstated. They supply 50 percent of the oxygen people breathe, feed billions of people and provide livelihoods for millions more. They are the great biological pump of global atmospheric and thermal regulation, and the driver of the water and nutrient cycles, as well as being among the most powerful tools for mitigating the effects of climate change. In short, oceans are a critical ally and people must do everything in their power to safeguard them.
This is all the more important given the unprecedented and unpredictable threats that the world currently faces. Though the ocean has been integral to slowing climate change, absorbing more than 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions and 90 percent of the excess heat generated since the Industrial Revolution, the cost has been huge.
Ocean acidification and warming has been occurring at alarming rates and are already having a serious impact on some of the most precious marine ecosystems — an impact that is likley to intensify.
Vast swaths of the world are experiencing what is likely to be the strongest El Nino on record. The adverse weather resulting from the phenomenon — which originates in the Pacific Ocean, but affects oceans worldwide — is expected to affect adversely more than 60 million people this year, compounding the misery wrought last year. It is a sobering reminder of people’s vulnerability to both natural and human-induced shocks to the Earth’s systems.
Despite all of this, people continue to degrade oceans through relentless destruction of habitats and biodiversity, including through overfishing and pollution. Disturbingly, recent reports indicate that oceans might contain 1kg of plastic for every 3kg of fish by 2025. These actions are facilitated by chronic failures of international governance; for example, one-fifth of all fish taken from oceans are illegally caught.
Urgent action must be taken not just to address climate change broadly by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but also to enhance the health and resilience of the world’s oceans. Fortunately, last year — a watershed year for global commitments — world leaders established conservation and restoration of the world’s oceans as a key component of the new UN development agenda, underpinned by 17 so-called Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Specifically, SDG 14 commits world leaders to end overfishing, eliminate illegal fishing, establish more marine protected areas, reduce plastic litter and other sources of marine pollution, and increase ocean resilience to acidification. The Global Ocean Commission celebrated this strong endorsement of urgent action to protect the ocean, which closely reflects a set of proposals contained in the Global Ocean Commission’s 2014 report From Decline to Recovery: A Rescue Package for the Global Ocean.
The world has an agreed roadmap for ocean recovery, but how far and how fast it travels is yet to be determined. The task ahead — translating admirable and ambitious commitments into effective collaborative action at the local, national and international levels — is immense.
The challenge is compounded by the weak and fragmented state of global ocean governance. Unlike other SDGs — such as those related to health, education or hunger — there is no single international body charged with driving forward the implementation of the ocean SDG. As a result, it is not clear who is to be responsible for monitoring and measuring progress and ensuring accountability.
To ensure that SDG 14 does not fall by the wayside, the governments of Fiji and Sweden proposed convening a high-level UN conference on ocean and seas in Fiji, with Swedish support, in June next year. Their proposal was subsequently cosponsored by 95 nations and adopted unanimously in a UN General Assembly resolution.
By drawing attention to the progress being made toward meeting SDG 14 targets and shining a spotlight on where results are lagging, the conference would provide a much-needed “accountability moment.” At the same time, by bringing together relevant stakeholders, it is likely to help catalyze deeper cooperation among governments, civil society and the private sector.
This is a promising step forward, reflecting the tremendous momentum that efforts to protect the ocean have gained in recent years. As the Global Ocean Commission’s work comes to a natural conclusion, its many partners and supporters are likely to be working hard to sustain this momentum, ensuring that building healthy and resilient oceans remains a global priority until it is a global reality.
The key to success, according to the Global Ocean Commission’s final report, would be the creation of an independent, transparent mechanism for monitoring, measuring and reporting on the essential actions needed to achieve the SDG 14 targets, as well as additional UN conferences between now and 2030.
Current and future generations alike need — and deserve — a healthy, resilient ocean. Growing awareness of — and strong commitments to resolve — the challenges facing the world’s oceans is heartening, but it is just the beginning. One hopes that this year turns out to be the year when the world enters a new era of ocean regeneration.
Ratu Inoke Kubuabola is the Fijian minister of foreign affairs. Isabella Lovin is the Swedish minister for international development cooperation. Trevor Manuel, a former South African minister of finance and former South African Planning Commission chairman, is co-chair of the Global Ocean Commission.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
As former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrapped up his visit to the People’s Republic of China, he received his share of attention. Certainly, the trip must be seen within the full context of Ma’s life, that is, his eight-year presidency, the Sunflower movement and his failed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, as well as his eight years as Taipei mayor with its posturing, accusations of money laundering, and ups and downs. Through all that, basic questions stand out: “What drives Ma? What is his end game?” Having observed and commented on Ma for decades, it is all ironically reminiscent of former US president Harry