oceans

Discarded fishing lines and hooks are also deadly; this decomposing green turtle was ensnared in the Bahamas in the Caribbean Sea.
UN World Oceans Day/Shane Gross

FROM THE FIELD: Ghost in the seashell

31 May 2021
Climate and Environment

“Ghost fishing” occurs when abandoned fishing gear dumped in the ocean traps and kills fish or other underwater life, and it is causing devastation to marine environments, warns the UN food agency, FAO.

A lighthouse off the coast of Florida in the United States.
Coral Reef Image Bank/David Gros

Oceans under threat like never before, warns World Meteorological Organization 

22 March 2021
Climate and Environment

Climate change has hit the world’s oceans hard, UN weather experts said on Monday, in a call for lifesaving monitoring and early warning services that were interrupted by COVID-19 to be ramped up again, to protect shipping and coastal communities at risk. 

Billions of people around the world depend on the Ocean for their main source of protein.
Coral Reef Image Bank/Erik Lukas

‘Dogged pragmatism’ needed to save Ocean: UN Special Envoy

2 June 2020
Climate and Environment

‘Dogged pragmatism’ is needed to save the Ocean as the world grapples with the coronavirus pandemic, according to the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy for the Ocean.

A beach clean-up in Mumbai, India, illustrates how plastic debris in the ocean leads to the deaths of millions of seabirds every year (file photo).
UN Environment Programme

COVID-19 could help turn the tide on ocean health in Asia-Pacific

13 May 2020
SDGs

The COVID-19 pandemic could help turn the tide on the well-being of oceans in the Asia-Pacific region, according to a UN report published on Wednesday.

Beveridge Reef, located within the waters of Niue in the central Pacific Ocean.
© UNDP/Vlad Sokhin

2020: the year for action, to ‘rise up’ and safeguard ocean life 

5 February 2020
Climate and Environment

With the ocean in deep crisis, members of civil society and philanthropic organisations are urging governments and corporations to take bold action to safeguard the ocean.  After a two-day preparatory meeting in New York ahead of June’s UN Ocean Conference in Portugal, activists handed over what they termed “A Blue Call to Action” to the UN Secretary-General António Guterres, on Wednesday.  

Acidification, sea level rise and other impacts of climate change are taking a massive toll on the world's oceans. Pictured is an aerial view of Reykjavik, Iceland.
UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

UN oceans treaty ‘essential’ to combat ‘unprecedented pressure’ on the world’s seas – UN chief

17 June 2019
SDGs

The oceans are not only under “unprecedented pressure” due to climate change, but “half of all living coral has been lost in the past 150 years”, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said on Monday, addressing the latest gathering of nations which are party to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

The low-lying island nation, Tuvalu, in the Pacific Ocean is particularly susceptible to higher sea levels caused by climate change.
UNDP Tuvalu/Aurélia Rusek

UN chief outlines ‘intertwined challenges’ of climate change, ocean health facing Pacific nations on the ‘frontline’

14 May 2019
Climate and Environment

Visiting Fiji for the first time as Secretary-General, António Guterres outlined two “fundamental challenges” facing leaders attending the Pacific Islands Forum on Tuesday, namely climate change and the world’s rising ocean, which threatens to submerge low-lying nations.

The UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres is greeted by officals as he arrives in Canada for the G7 meeting.
G7 Canada/Xavier Dachez

‘We face a global emergency’ over oceans: UN chief sounds the alarm at G7 Summit event

9 June 2018
Climate and Environment

Unless there is a change of course, the amount of plastic waste in the world’s oceans will outweigh the fish that live in them, by 2050, said the United Nations Secretary-General on Saturday, declaring that the world now faces a “global emergency” over the oceans.

Plastic bottles and garbage waste from a village in Timor-Leste wash on the shores of a river and then spill into the sea.
UN Photo/Martine Perret

World must unite against ‘preventable tragedy’ of ocean pollution: UN chief

8 June 2018
Climate and Environment

From carrying your own water bottle, to volunteering for a local clean-up, everybody needs to do something to stop plastic pollution from getting into the world’s oceans, said UN Secretary-General António Guterres in his message for World Oceans Day.

Plastic pollution in the world's oceans is threatening marine life.
Saeed Rashid

FROM THE FIELD: Plastic pollution choking world’s oceans

7 June 2018
Climate and Environment

An underwater photographer’s chance encounter with a starving turtle led to a personal “awakening” about the dangers discarded plastic poses to sea life in the world’s oceans.