Environmental organisation Greenpeace has called for an urgent global political response in the next 12 months to address the impact of climate change on the world’s oceans.
A new report by the organisation titled ‘In Hot Water: The Climate Crisis and the Urgent Need for Ocean Protection’ was published on Wednesday, highlighting the breakdown of oceans owing to fossil fuel use.
Greenpeace said the oceanic ecosystem structure and functions across the world had started to break down, causing oceans to heat up, sea levels to rise and acidification and deoxygenation.
“The climate crisis is an oceans crisis. Rising global temperatures mean that our oceans are heating up as well, becoming unlivable for marine life. The oceans serve all of us, on the highveld or at the cape; they are the second lung of the planet, and their resilience and health means our own is protected,” added Greenpeace Africa climate and energy campaign manager Bukelwa Nzimande.
The report urged coordinated action from governments, seizing on a series of events over the next year which presented a “unique window of opportunity” to address climate breakdown, biodiversity loss and ocean protection at a global scale.
This includes States agreeing to be more ambitious in their national greenhouse-gas emissions reduction targets at climate summits in Spain and the UK, agreeing a Global Ocean Treaty at the United Nations meeting by the end of 2020, and committing to protect 30% of the oceans by 2030 with a network of ocean sanctuaries at the Convention on Biological Diversity summit in China, in October 2020.
“Through protecting at least 30% of the ocean with a network of sanctuaries, marine ecosystems can build resilience and better withstand rapid changes, as well as help mitigate climate breakdown by safeguarding carbon sequestration and storage,” said Nzimande.
The report identifies ocean ecosystems as being at the frontline of climate impacts and recommends a list of priority areas that governments should protect within a global network of ocean sanctuaries.
These include both poles of the Arctic and Antarctic, whale hotspots, coral reefs, mangroves, seagrass meadows, the Sargasso Sea in the Atlantic, the mesopelagic zone and the deep ocean, which the report states should remain off-limits to the nascent deep sea mining industry.
The report comes as Mediterranean Ministers gather in Naples for the Conference of the Parties of the Barcelona Convention, where Greenpeace Italy is launching a coastal pilot station to monitor rising temperatures in the Mediterranean Sea, which is a hotspot for climate impacts.