Ocean and Climate Change Dialogue 2023 held during the Bonn Climate Conference earlier this month underscored the crucial importance of action to protect the ocean and highlighted the need for the ocean to feature prominently in all relevant aspects of the UN Climate Change process.
The June Ocean Dialogue coincided with preparations for the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference COP28 in the United Arab Emirates at the end of the year, where the outcomes of the global stocktake will be a key focus, along with other ways to increase ambition on climate change.
At the start of the Ocean Dialogue, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell reminded participants of the latest report of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which points to the substantial damage and increasingly irreversible losses to ocean ecosystems from climate change, and the implications for food security.
“The ocean holds the key to an equitable and sustainable planet. The ocean has fed and sustained us for centuries. We cannot continue to pollute and plunder it without regard to consequences. There is still an opportunity to shape the 21st century economy in ways that are clean, green and blue, healthy, safe, and just – for all people, especially in the most remote and vulnerable parts of the world,” he said.
The 2023 June Ocean Dialogue focused on how to step up action to build resilience to climate change and to cut emissions within the ocean-climate nexus.
It focused specifically on two topics: coastal ecosystem restoration and blue carbon ecosystems, which include fisheries and food security.
Nationally Determined Contributions and National Adaptation Plans signal government priorities and help channel financing for restoration actions, as well as strengthening the integration of coastal ecosystems in ongoing processes under the UNFCCC.