The United Nations Ocean Conference 2022 was organised recently at Lisbon, Portugal. The five day conference took place from June 27 to July 2022. This conference was co-hosted by the Governments of Portugal and Kenya. The Ocean conference is being considered as a step towards ensuring global cooperation for protection and sustenance of the Ocean ecosystem.
Topics like global conferences are important from the prelims point of view for UPSC. So in this article you will learn about the theme and various aspects of the UN Ocean Conference 2022.
Theme Of UN Oceans Conference 2022
Theme of UN Ocean Conference 2022 is: “Scaling up ocean action based on science and innovation for the implementation of goal 14: Stocktaking, Partnerships and Solutions.“
The theme itself indicates that this conference is aimed to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 14) i.e. “Life Below Water”. For this it emphasises on the need of Scientific knowledge and use of environmentally- friendly Marine technology to make ocean life healthy and green.
The UN Ocean Conference 2022
So this is for the second time when the UN Ocean conference was organised in which the leaders from around 130 countries participated and determined for the international agreement on protecting the world’s oceans, seas and marine resources. The Minister of Earth Sciences led the Indian delegation at the UN Ocean Conference. Leaders from participating countries promised to provide Science as well as innovation based approaches for implementation of SDG 14 Life below Water.
The first UN Ocean Conference was organised in 2017 from June 5 to June 9. It Was aimed at seeking mobilised actions for the conservation and sustainable use of the oceans, seas and marine resources.
Agendas Of UN Ocean Conference 2022
Here are the following agendas of the United Nations Global Conference 2022.
- To stop deep sea mining: One of the agendas of the Ocean Conference was to limit the deep sea mining for rare metals used in electric vehicle battery construction in order to protect the oceanic ecosystem.
- Carbon Sequestration: To boost oceans capacity to soak up the level of CO2 by adopting mechanisms like geoengineering or by enhancing natural sinks i.e mangroves.
- High Seas: as there is no legal framework for high seas till now it was also one of the matters of concerns of the conference.
- Blue deal to enable the sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth.It also focuses on blue foods to ensure marine harvests from all sources are sustainable and socially responsible.
Significance of Oceans
Around 70% of the area of Earth is covered with water and most of which is in Oceans. Oceans produce around 50% of the planet’s oxygen. They are also responsible to absorb 25% of all Co2 emission and capture 90% of additional heat generated by those emissions.
Oceans as a home to most of the Earth’s Biodiversity plays a crucial role in balancing the ecosystem. As a big source of sea food they are also one of the main sources of protein. Oceans are also important as it is estimated that by 2030 they will be one of the major keys to boost our Economy as more than 40 billion people will be employed by the Ocean based Industries.
Threats to Oceans Globally
One of the major threats to oceans is Global warming that is causing sea level to rise, threatening coastal population centres. Marine life is also suffering due to the wastes generated by humans like industrial wastes, chemical & pesticides used in agriculture activities, sewage water, polythene etc.
Around 8 million metric tons of plastic waste leak into the ocean every year, causing contamination of sediments at the sea-bottom and causing plastic waste to be embedded in the aquatic food chain. Whereas Oil spilling is also responsible for polluting the Oceans.
Initiatives to Protect Oceans
Here is the list of initiatives taken to protect Life below Water.
- Decade of Ocean Science : The United Nations has proclaimed 2021-2030 as a decade of Ocean science for sustainable development. It is declared to gather the stakeholders to support the cause and to bring the health of the aqua body back on its track.
- World Ocean Day : The United Nations declared June 8 as the world ocean day to inspire actions to protect the ocean and to celebrate the role of the oceans in our everyday life.
- GloLitter Partnership Project : The project was launched in the joint collaboration of International Maritime Organisation (IMO), the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the government of Norway. The project is aimed at preventing and reducing Marine plastic litter from activities like Fisheries and Shipping.
- India’s Indo Pacific Ocean Initiative is an open non treaty based initiative to work towards collaborative and cooperative solutions to face common challenges in the Indo-Pacific region.
- Blue Nation Alliance of the Conservation International aims to effectively double ocean protections globally by 2025.
- India and Norway also signed a joint MOU named asIndia-Norway ocean Dialogue in 2019, under which both countries agreed upon working more closely on oceans.