In the run-up to the UN Ocean Conference 2025 in June, the UN trade and development agency, UNCTAD, emphasised that oceans are essential to all life, by sustaining biodiversity, regulating the climate and generating oxygen.
The Fazenda de Camarão shrimp farm in Calhau, Cabo Verde, aligns with goals of promoting sustainable agriculture and fisheries.
Buoyed by innovation
Among the UN agencies calling for action, UNCTAD recommends:
- integrating ocean-based sectors into national climate and biodiversity plans
- reducing trade barriers
- expanding data collection on ocean-related emissions, trade and investment
- ending harmful subsidies
- finalising legally binding treaties on plastic pollution
To drive urgently needed progress, the UN agency’s Ocean Forum will launch initiatives that include a renewed Ocean Trade Database to help analyse the fast-evolving sector, a proposal for a UN task force on seaweed development and a project on evidence-based ocean climate action.
The latter, involving UNCTAD and the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), uses artificial intelligence (AI) and data innovations to support Caribbean small island developing States in particular.