World must do more to protect oceans
UN Ocean Conference concludes with the hope of a deal in August
World leaders must do more to protect the oceans, a major United Nations conference concluded on Friday, setting its sights on a new treaty to protect the high seas.
"Greater ambition is required at all levels to address the dire state of the ocean," the UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon said in its final declaration.
The meeting in the Portuguese capital -- attended by government officials, experts and advocates from 140 countries -- is not a negotiating forum.
But it sets the agenda for final international negotiations in August on a treaty to protect the high seas -- those international waters beyond national jurisdiction.
"Biodiversity loss, the decline of the ocean's health, the way the climate crisis is going... it all has one common reason, which is... human behaviour, our addiction to oil and gas, and all of them have to be addressed," Peter Thomson, the UN Special Envoy for the Ocean, told AFP.
Oceans produce half the oxygen we breathe, regulate the weather and provide humanity's single largest source of protein.
They also absorb a quarter of CO2 pollution and 90 percent of excess heat from global warming, thus playing a key role in protecting life on Earth.
But they are being pushed to the brink by human activities.
Sea water has turned acidic, threatening aquatic food chains and the ocean's capacity to absorb carbon. Global warming has spawned massive marine heatwaves that are killing off coral reefs and expanding dead zones bereft of oxygen.
Humans have fished some marine species to the edge of extinction and used the world's waters as a rubbish dump.
Efforts to protect the oceans will be discussed at two key summits later this year -- UN climate talks in November and UN biodiversity negotiations in December.
At the heart of the draft UN biodiversity treaty is a plan to designate 30 percent of Earth's land and oceans as protected zones by 2030. Currently, under 8pc of oceans are protected.
A number of new, protected marine areas could be declared off-limits to fishing, mining, drilling or other extractive activities which scientists say disrupt fragile seabed ecosystems.