To reduce existing man-made pressures on marine ecosystems, a common ambitious plan with large collaborative agreements and significant changes in all industrial sectors will be needed. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has promoted an Arctic Ocean Network of Priority Areas for Conservation to define stable measures for the conservation of its icy-waters, while the UN and industries in line with SDG 14 have prepared an Arctic Ocean Action Plan. Polar regions deserve special attention: while Antarctica is subject to environmental protection in keeping with the Antarctic Treaty and a commission was created to preserve its marine living resources, the Arctic is at risk. Today, the UN and the High Seas Alliance (HSA) are committed to working with countries and other actors towards the adoption and ratification of a comprehensive treaty to protect the world’s oceans beyond national jurisdictions (30% of these waters by 2030). UNCLOS argues that countries need to show greater ambition and proactively manage their EEZ by improving their spatial planning to achieve sustainable goals. It distinguishes between the High Seas –64% of the oceans’ surface and 95% of their volume–, that is, all marine waters not owned by countries, and coastal countries’ exclusive economic zones (EEZ). The international ocean governance framework is based on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) which defines the rights and responsibilities of nations concerning the use of the world’s oceans. It has also increased the oceans’ acidification to a degree that can potentially collapse rich ecosystems and entire habitats. In turn, this upended equilibrium has modified the overturning circulation, altering the transport of nutrients with the consequent loss of life. Today, that equilibrium has been broken: the growing emission of greenhouse gases, primarily due to human activities, has interrupted the energy balance, heating the oceans and altering their ability to absorb these gases. For centuries, a planetary equilibrium in the ocean’s overturning circulation (the flow of warm, salty water in upper layers of the ocean, and the opposite flow of cold water in lower layers) created stable conditions for the atmosphere and made life possible below water – and on land. In addition, ocean currents govern the world’s weather and its dependent biomes. About 70% of the planet’s surface is covered by water, and 97% of this water is found in the oceans. In fact, oceans are our planet’s largest life support system. The Earth could have been called Planet Ocean.
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