The oceans cover about 71 percent of the Earth’s surface and hold around 97 percent of its water. This means they have an enormous impact on global weather, temperature, and food supply to all living organisms.
The most vital of these sustaining actions is, of course, the absorption of carbon and the release of oxygen.
Another critical role is in regulating global climate patterns – it hardly needs to be pointed out that any changes in ocean temperatures and currents can lead to shifts in rainfall, sea-level rise, and extreme weather events like floods and droughts, adversely impacting global ecosystems, agriculture, animal and human populations.
Ironically, despite knowing the deleterious consequences of despoiling the oceans, humanity appears to be bent on directly or indirectly damaging our ocean ecology. Global warming due to the emission of greenhouse gases poses a grave danger, raising the temperature of the oceans, and imperilling marine life as also low-lying coastal areas.
The need of the hour is to accelerate ocean-rejuvenation action and mobilise all stakeholders to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, which is indubitably the raison d'etre for holding the 2025 United Nations Ocean Conference, co-hosted by the governments of France and Costa Rica, which is ongoing in Nice, France. Given the increasing pace of human ravage inflicted on the oceans, such a conference is the ideal forum for humanity to mull over the issue.
By bringing together world leaders, scientists, private sector representatives, civil society, indigenous peoples and local communities, this conference will be used to underscore the oceans’ multiple roles, even while sticking to the motto of this 2025 edition, ‘Turn The Tide,’ which mirrors its objective of trying to reverse the ecological degradation the oceans are being subjected to.
The conference is expected to adopt a negotiated political declaration, which, along with a registry of voluntary commitments from across sectors, will be referred to as the Nice Ocean Action Plan, aimed at catalysing urgent, inclusive, and science-based action to safeguard the oceans for future generations. Key issues under discussion during the five-day conference include: The Marine Biodiversity Treaty Agreement: Advancing ratifications of the Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction, decarbonising ocean vessels, controlling plastic pollution, etc.
Agreements would also be made on one of the touchiest aspects of ocean exploitation, ending illegal and unregulated fishing practices, while encouraging science-based, community-led approaches to rebuild fish stocks and minimise ecosystem damage. However, while disruption to ocean ecology poses a clear and present danger, how quickly and effectively humanity would respond begs the question. We have had too many instances of climate change and global warming summits collapsing because nations allowed self-interest to prevail. One certainly hopes that this will not be the fate of this Ocean Conference!