UN Says Oceans Are in a Growing Crisis

Overview

• The United Nations published the third World Ocean Assessment after five years of work by about 600 scientists, calling the oceans a "growing crisis" and urging urgent, coordinated international response.
• The report documents accelerated ocean warming and a faster rise in sea level, estimating a global mean sea-level increase of about 4.3 mm per year from 2013 to 2023 and large uptake of excess heat and CO2 by the ocean.
• Plastic pollution is now recorded to affect more than 4,000 marine species, with roughly 52.1 million tonnes of plastic entering the ocean each year and trillions of microplastic particles present in marine environments.
• Fisheries and habitats are under heavy strain: about 38% of global fish stocks were fished beyond sustainable replacement in 2021 and repeated marine heatwaves since 2018 have driven widespread coral bleaching that risks reef collapse if warming exceeds 1.5°C.
• The WOA-3 highlights additional risks from planned deep-sea mining and warns that reported plans by the US government to remove hundreds of deep-ocean monitoring instruments could leave a major gap in long-term ocean science and response capacity.