Earth is called the Blue Planet for good reason. When viewed from space with the Pacific Ocean as the centre point, our planet is an azure marble suspended in inky blackness. That ocean we see is life, but it is life we don’t fully understand. We rely on it for a stable climate, for every breath that we take, for food and livelihoods and so much more. And while much of the ocean remains unmapped and unknowable, we understand that it is vital to our lives.
That is the story we need to understand. Indigenous People tell us this story because they live with the ocean. Many of us have forgotten, so let’s listen to those voices.
This year alone, the world’s largest deep sea coral reef was discovered beneath the Gulf Stream. Who knew that new species would be found on an underwater mountain off the coast of Chile? Or that ancient polymetallic nodules in the dark depths of the Pacific Ocean would be found to be producing oxygen without light? No-one knew this was possible.
But vast as the ocean may be, it is vulnerable to human activities. Oceans uptake everything we give into the environment. Our CO2, our effluents, our toxicity, our garbage, our plastic. It flows into these innocent spaces. We need to stimulate awareness that oceans aren’t there just to take our garbage but are givers of life.
Climate change is raising temperatures and acidifying water. Countless microplastic particles are swirling alongside the plankton. Overexploitation is devastating species. And there are emerging threats. The prospect of deep-sea mining is raising concerns around possible damage to ocean-floor ecosystems crucial to ocean and carbon cycling, and to the species themselves.
These pressures are why the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) and its ocean-related targets are so important. Yes, the 30x30 target on conservation and restoration acidification is important. But let’s not forget the other targets, please, because we must meet the totality of the GBF. The drivers of biodiversity loss include over-exploitation, fragmentation and ecosystem change. These are critical.
So, stimulating public and private finance to triple investments in nature-based solutions by 2030 will be a crucial enabling factor for delivery. Marine nature-based solutions receive only 9 per cent of such investments and SDG 14, Life Below Water, is the least funded of all SDGs. Without real finance, and without smart policy shifts, there cannot be real action.
We are seeing progress. The Global Funds for Coral Reefs is a blended private-public partnership driving reef-positive investments. We celebrate that. The UNEP Finance Initiative convenes global institutions across banking, investment, insurance, science and policymaking in support of the Sustainable Blue Economy Finance Principles. We celebrate that.
But we must also see enhanced integrated ocean governance strategies. The ocean is a connector of people and across many Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs). For nearly fifty years, UNEP has been proud to host the Regional Seas Conventions, the first coming in 1977, five years after UNEP was established. These are 17 of these conventions, from the Cartagena Convention to the Barcelona Convention and on and on. These conventions deal with biodiversity within national jurisdiction. They hold fifty years of learning on biodiversity conversation.
Now we have the BBNJ Agreement on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction, which we celebrate. Biodiversity doesn’t know whether it is within or without a jurisdiction. So, we must look for synergies between the Regional Seas Conventions and the BBNJ. And we must increase political momentum to ratify the BBNJ Agreement on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction, starting at this COP. Because every moment lost is indeed moments lost for the oceans.
And here, I want to stress that, at the end of November, we have the last round of negotiations on the plastic pollution treaty. I ask you all to support us in getting this over the line. We must find real solutions to this scourge. I also ask you to understand that we will have to rely on plastic in medicine, transport and so on. But we must take a lifecycle approach, exit unnecessary, short-lived plastics and innovate.
All these deals – on plastics, on climate, on pollution and more – all underpin the GBF. We need to ensure everything joins up.
Friends,
There are many other actions we must take, including using advances in marine science to accurately monitor impacts and progress on the GBF targets. We can do it. We must do it. Because the ocean needs us to pledge that we are here in Cali, Colombia, to make peace with nature.
