More funds, care needed to save world's oceans, says UN chief

LISBON • United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has appealed to governments and companies to join the fight to save the world's dying oceans, by committing more funds to help create a sustainable economic model for managing them.

"Sadly, we have taken the ocean for granted, and today we face what I would call an 'ocean emergency'," said Mr Guterres. "We must turn the tide.

He was speaking at yesterday's opening plenary of the UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon, an event attended by thousands of policymakers, experts and advocates to assess progress in implementing a directive to protect marine life.

Mr Guterres said there was a need for symbiotic business models that could help the ocean produce more food and generate more renewable energy.

"That entails new levels of long-term funding," he said.

The ocean covers about 70 per cent of the planet's surface, generating 50 per cent of the oxygen and absorbing 25 per cent of all carbon dioxide emissions. But climate change is pushing ocean temperatures to record levels and making it more acidic, he said, adding that some eight million tonnes of plastic waste enter the oceans yearly.

"Without drastic action, (the plastic) could outweigh all the fish in the oceans by 2050," he said.

In March, UN member states failed to agree on a treaty to protect the high seas from exploitation.

Mr Peter Thomson, the UN Special Envoy of the Ocean, told Reuters he was confident a consensus would be reached this year.

But Greenpeace campaigner Laura Meller said: "Leaders in Lisbon will congratulate each other for how well they're doing on marine protection, while the ocean crisis deepens.

"We don't need another talking shop, with vague statements and voluntary commitments.

"Humanity needs healthy oceans. They generate 50 per cent of the oxygen we breathe and provide essential protein and nutrients to billions of people."

Covering more than two-thirds of Earth's surface, the seven seas have also softened the impact of climate change for life on land.

But at a terrible cost.

Absorbing around a quarter of CO2 pollution - while emissions increased by half over the last 60 years - has turned sea water acidic, threatening aquatic food chains and the ocean's capacity to pull down carbon.

And soaking up more than 90 per cent of the excess heat from global warming has spawned massive marine heatwaves that are killing off precious coral reefs and expanding dead zones bereft of oxygen.

"We have only begun to understand the extent to which climate change is going to wreak havoc on ocean health," said Dr Charlotte de Fontaubert, the World Bank's global lead for the blue economy.

Making things worse is an unending torrent of pollution, including a garbage truck's worth of plastic every minute, according the UN Environment Programme.

On current trends, yearly plastic waste will nearly triple to one billion tonnes by 2060, according to a recent report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Microplastics - found inside Arctic ice and fish in the ocean's deepest trenches - are estimated to kill more than a million seabirds and over 100,000 marine mammals each year.

Solutions on the table range from recycling to global caps on plastic production.

Global fisheries will also be under the spotlight during the five-day UN Ocean Conference, jointly hosted by Portugal and Kenya. The event was originally slated for April 2020.

"At least one-third of wild fish stocks are overfished and less than 10 per cent of the ocean is protected," said Dr Kathryn Matthews, chief scientist for the US-based non-governmental organisation Oceana. "Destructive and illegal fishing vessels operate with impunity in many coastal waters and on the high seas."

The conference will also see a push for a moratorium on deep-sea mining of rare metals needed for a boom in the production of electric vehicle batteries.

Another major focus will be "blue food", the new watchword for ensuring that marine harvests from all sources are sustainable and socially responsible.

Participants will push for a strong ocean agenda at two critical summits later this year: the COP27 UN climate talks in November, hosted by Egypt, followed by the long-delayed COP15 biodiversity negotiations, recently moved from China to Canada's Montreal.

REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE