- As climate change talks took center stage at COP30, a growing number of countries have integrated ocean-based solutions into their national climate commitments.
- A new report found that 92% of coastal and island nations’ updated climate plans now include ocean-related measures, although these strategies still represent only 12% of all proposed climate mitigation actions.
- Brazil and France unveiled a Blue NDC Implementation Taskforce to boost ocean solutions, while countries like the Solomon Islands and Ghana launched new plans for protecting their marine and coastal systems.
Between Nov. 10 and 21, more than 56,000 delegates, including representatives from nearly 200 nations, gathered in Belém, Brazil, for the 30th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This year’s summit, called COP30, was the second-best-attended climate COP in history, and it took place at a critical moment. Global temperatures have climbed to modern record highs, and extreme weather is battering ecosystems and communities around the world. This is happening despite countries a decade earlier adopting the Paris Agreement, a legally binding treaty aimed at limiting warming to 1.5° Celsius (2.7° Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.
Delegates were under pressure to strike agreements to cut greenhouse gas emissions, to protect people already facing climate impacts, and to finance the energy and economic transitions needed to avoid further catastrophic warming. The negotiations eventually culminated in countries pledging funding for climate adaptation, and agreeing to take steps to ensure that this transition is just and equitable. A coalition of nations also agreed to follow a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels, albeit outside of the U.N. structure.
While the negotiations focused broadly on mitigating the impacts of climate change, Marina Corrêa, the oceans focal point at WWF-Brazil, also said there was “amazing progress” at COP30 in “recognizing the ocean-climate nexus,” and that an increasing number of countries had adopted ocean-based solutions to achieve their climate goals.
A new report released Nov. 18 by the Washington, D.C.-based NGOs the World Resources Institute and the Ocean Conservancy, and the French NGO Ocean and Climate Platform, found a sharp rise in ocean-focused commitments within nationally determined contributions, or NDCs, which refer to individual countries’ emissions reduction plans. Of 66 NDCs submitted by coastal or island nations this year, prior to COP30, the report found that 61 countries, or 92%, included at least one ocean-related measure — from the use of offshore wind to decarbonizing maritime transport and aquatic food systems, to restoring and protecting “blue carbon” ecosystems, such as mangroves, seagrasses and saltmarshes.
This was a sharp increase from previous years. In 2022, only 73% of coastal and island nations included ocean-related measures, and in 2015, only 62% did. (The report looked at 2022 and 2015 since those were the years that the previous NDC cycles ended.)
“The references to these solutions have increased over time, and now we’re at nine out of 10 NDCs being submitted by coastal nations including ocean climate solutions,” Anna-Marie Laura, one of the report co-authors and the senior director of climate policy at the Ocean Conservancy, told Mongabay.
At the same time, the report found that most forms of ocean-based mitigation strategies still remained “underrepresented,” making up only 12% of all measures to combat climate change.
Brazil and France jointly announced they would lead a “Blue NDC Implementation Taskforce,” intended to help nations accelerate the integration of ocean-based solutions into their climate plans. This initiative builds on the Blue NDC Challenge launched earlier this year at the U.N. Ocean Conference in Nice, France.
“The challenge is about recognizing these solutions where they already are being planned to be used, where they already are being implemented, and then inspiring others to see a whole sector of solutions that could increase their ambition,” Laura said.
“The ocean is still often out of sight, out of mind for so many people,” she added, “and they don’t think about the huge potential for offshore wind, the huge potential for decarbonizing shipping and making our ports more resilient. So it’s really recognition of what’s already there and then inspiring others to also do more.”
Seventeen countries, including Brazil and France, have already signed onto the Blue NDC Challenge.
Some countries also made additional announcements about their efforts to safeguard the ocean.
For instance, on Nov. 18, the Solomon Islands launched a “reef-positive finance model” in collaboration with Switzerland-headquartered organizations WWF and the Global Fund for Coral Reefs (GFCR), and co-led by the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) and U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP). This initiative aims to support local enterprises that protect coral reefs, sustain livelihoods and build long-term climate resilience.
“Our reefs are the lifeblood of our communities, sustaining our food systems, protecting our shores, and anchoring our cultural identity and place,” Polycarp Paea, the minister of environment, climate change, disaster management and meteorology of the Solomon Islands, said in a statement. “This partnership … marks a new chapter in how we invest in the resilience of our people and our ecosystems in the face of climate change.”
Ghana, one of the founding members of the Ocean Panel — a global initiative of 19 nations supporting sustainable ocean governance — published its Sustainable Ocean Plan (SOP), which aims to safeguard marine and coastal areas. (Nine other Ocean Panel member states have published similar plans, drafts or road maps.) President John Dramani Mahama said the plan signals Ghana’s “unwavering dedication to fulfilling our global commitments, including 100% management of ocean areas under our national jurisdiction.”
On Nov. 18, Brazil became the 19th nation to join the Ocean Panel, which is chaired by Norway and Palau. As per the requirements of joining the Ocean Panel, Brazil also pledged to sustainably manage 100% of its 3.68-million-square-kilometer (1.42-million-square-mile) exclusive economic zone (EEZ), the marine area that extends 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) from its coastline, by 2030. This massive marine area is two-fifths as big as the country’s landmass.
“Without the ocean, we cannot truly confront climate change,” President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said in a Nov.18 press release announcing Brazil’s pledge and panel membership. “We must harness its immense potential to reduce emissions and protect our coasts from extreme weather. The ocean is central to Brazil’s culture, diet and livelihoods, and building a sustainable ocean economy will open new opportunities for Brazilians. That’s why we have joined the Ocean Panel in its vision to safeguard the ocean and use its resources wisely and responsibly.”
Lula also called for many other climate-based measures, including the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the expansion of public participation in climate policy.
Corrêa of WWF-Brazil welcomed Brazil’s new commitments, but also warned that their impact would depend on how rapidly the country translates them into action.
“It’s going to be about the journey from now on,” Corrêa told Mongabay. “Although we have the ambition, we will need to see implementation for the public policies that were created nationally, but also to keep seeing if Brazil keeps showing up for this agenda.”
Brazil’s ocean- and climate- related announcements clash with its continued push to expand oil and gas extraction, some observers note. A new SkyTruth report found that “Brazil’s oil production increased by more than 49% and natural gas production increased by over 78%” between 2014 and 2024.
“While the government authorized oil drilling in a huge area in the north — what we have called the equatorial margin — it is signaling that it will only create small protected marine areas on the coast of the northeast and in the far south,” Ademilson Zamboni, vice president for conservation NGO Oceana in Brazil, told Mongabay. The country should be “more ambitious” in creating marine protected areas “to compensate for the risks imposed by oil drilling in sensitive areas such as the equatorial margin in the Amazonian Region,” he said.
Zamboni added that he viewed Brazil’s pledge to sustainably manage 100% of its waters as “vague,” since many of its protected areas allow multiple uses, such as fishing and other activities.
According to the Marine Protection Atlas, Brazil has protected nearly 25% of its EEZ in some way, but only fully or highly protected a little more than 3%.
Laura from the Ocean Conservancy noted that while global climate action has accelerated in recent years, progress remains far too slow to safeguard marine ecosystems already grappling with severe and escalating effects of climate change, such as the widespread loss of coral reefs, sea level rise, and increasingly powerful storms.
“The number one thing we need to do to protect the ocean is to focus on emissions reduction and mitigation,” she said. “The first global tipping point is happening to warm water coral reefs. The ocean is seeing the impacts of climate change first and in a really severe way. And here at COP, remembering that these national climate plans, emissions reduction plans, they need to be happening at a much faster pace than we’re currently seeing, to really protect the ocean.”
Banner image: Abrolhos Marine National Park. Image courtesy of Roberto Costa Pinto via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Elizabeth Claire Alberts is a senior staff writer for Mongabay and was recently a fellow with the Pulitzer Center’s Ocean Reporting Network. Find her on Bluesky and LinkedIn.
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