Home to most of earth’s biodiversity and a vital buffer against climate change, the oceans have only recently been taken seriously by decision-makers. They were integrated into United Nations climate talks for the first time in 2021, while a landmark “high seas treaty” to protect marine health was finally agreed in March after two decades of negotiations.
“There cannot be a healthy planet without a healthy ocean,” says Peter Thomson, the UN's special oceans envoy, who equates climate change and “ocean change” as essentially one and the same thing.
