The Ocean Has Finally Entered the Global Climate Debate

The ocean has finally entered the global climate debate

In global climate policy, the ocean was long treated as an afterthought, too vast to manage effectively and too resilient to be degraded. Instead, the focus was almost exclusively on reducing greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions and preserving forests. That era is now over. At the most recent United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Belém, the ocean moved from the margins to the mainstream of climate governance. It featured prominently in n…