The Ocean takes center stage: How climate governance entered a Blue era

The Ocean takes center stage: How climate governance entered a Blue era

For decades, global climate policy treated the ocean as a passive backdrop – vast, resilient, and largely beyond the reach of effective governance. Climate negotiations focused overwhelmingly on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, protecting forests, and transitioning energy systems, while the ocean was assumed to absorb humanity’s excesses without consequence. That assumption has now collapsed. At the most recent UN Climate Change Conference, CO…