2022 UN Ocean Conference Focuses on Sustainability

The UN Ocean Conference, from June 27-July 1, provides a unique opportunity to boost collective efforts and find innovative solutions to effectively address the challenges facing the world’s oceans.

United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 14 is about conserving and sustainably using the world’s ocean and marine resources. Oceans cover more than 70 percent of the earth’s surface. As the planet’s largest ecosystem, the oceans regulate the climate, generate oxygen, and provide livelihoods for billions.

Oceans also contributes to current and future sustainable economic growth. Healthy, productive, sustainable, and resilient oceans are fundamental to life on our planet and to our future.

But climate change poses adverse effects on the ocean and marine life, including the rise in ocean temperatures, ocean acidification, deoxygenation, sea level rise, the decrease in polar ice coverage, decrease in marine biodiversity, as well as coastal erosion and extreme weather events and related impacts on island and coastal communities. Cumulative human activities also cause ecosystem degradation and species extinctions. 2022 is the year to stop the decline.

“We need to save our ocean to protect our future,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.