This year’s World Ocean Day 2015 saw the launch of a wide international mobilization effort to promote the importance of safeguarding the world’s oceans. The new campaign feeds into UN Convention on Climate Change in Paris at the end of the year.

 

June 8 was the annual World Oceans Day marked by the United Nations. This week the campaign body Ocean and Climate Platform is running a series of events deigned to raise public awareness of the environmental risks faced by the major seas of the world.

 

The Ocean and Climate Platform is made up of non-governmental organizations and research institutes, and it is part funded by UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission.

 

The theme of the current campaign is “Ocean's call for Climate.” Central to this is a new petition. The petition calls upon delegates at the forthcoming United Nations Climate Convention to place the oceans at the heart of climate negotiations. The key point is the role that oceans play in providing oxygen and absorbing carbon dioxide; which are important factors that, if disrupted, could contribute towards climate change.

 

While the oceans reduce climate change risks by storing large quantities of carbon dioxide, it also stands that increased levels of dissolved carbon alter the chemistry of seawater and can make it more acidic. This affects different types of sea life and has been linked with a decrease in oceanic biodiversity.

 

Furthermore, evidence collated by the United Nations (UN) suggests that ocean temperatures have risen over the past 50 years. This has an impact on sea levels and currents. With this physical change, a UN statement indicates: “Ocean ecosystems are degrading. Corals, which sustain so much of marine life, are vulnerable to bleaching and even death caused by warmer temperatures.”