Here's how to mobilize for Sustainable Development Goal 14 ahead of UN Ocean Conference 2025

When humans arrived at the moon on NASA's Voyager 1, a famous photo image was captured of our planet Earth, the planet scientist Carl Sagan memorably called the "pale blue dot."

On that pale blue dot of a planet, 70% of the surface is covered by the ocean. It's a wonder why planet Earth is not called planet Ocean, considering its critical role in regulating the climate while providing life sustenance, food and livelihoods for billions of people. As the world's largest carbon sink, the ocean absorbs 25% of all carbon emissions, captures 90% of excess heat and supplies over 50% of the world's oxygen.

It also provides a backbone for the global economy, with the economic value of ocean-based industries estimated to be $2.5 trillion annually and expected to pass $3 trillion by 2030.

Yet, major changes in the ocean are afoot: Increasing sea level rise, rising seawater temperature and increasing ocean acidification threaten fishing, tourism, and industries tied to the regenerative ocean economy. Marine heatwaves increase extreme weather and glacial melting and push delicate ecosystems such as coral reefs – home to at least 25% of marine life – towards existential tipping points.

These threats disproportionately affect coastal areas but their full consequences will be felt across the planet.

The UN Ocean Conference was created to bring together governments, civil society, academia, the scientific community, philanthropic organizations, Indigenous Peoples, local communities and the private sector to discuss the implementation of SDG 14 – Life Below Water.

In June 2025, UNOC3 will take place in Nice, France, co-hosted by the governments of France and Costa Rica. The theme will be "Accelerating action and mobilizing all actors to conserve and sustainably use the ocean."

This high-level conference will be a pivotal moment for the international community to showcase progress on SDG14 through multilateral action.

There is currently a window of hope and optimism for the ocean, yet it is quickly beginning to narrow. Global visibility of ocean issues and science has dramatically increased since the first UN Ocean Conference in 2017, augmented by the 2021 inception of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.

More funding than ever before, including significant philanthropic contributions, flows into ocean science and towards long-term conservation and restoration of marine areas, combating pollution, boosting ocean innovation, building finance and developing a sustainable and regenerative ocean economy.

Yet, funding is still woefully short of what is needed. Estimates suggest that close to $150 billion is needed annually to close the gap to achieve SDG14.

In the past two years alone, the world witnessed historic agreements and progress for a healthy ocean:

These agreements represent tangible global progress, but we still need concerted efforts to conclude them fully before we gather in Nice, France, in June of next year. There is an urgent need to define synergies between agreements to accelerate their implementation – bringing it all together for the ocean. But how can we do it all in time?

There are various key steps and areas of action that will accelerate ocean action in the coming months and we are calling for global action on the following levers:

Through the Friends of Ocean Action community hosted by the World Economic Forum, we focus on four core activation threads to create mutual advantage for all thematic agendas, bringing together ocean-climate, protecting 30x30, blue foods and ocean pollution.

Between now and next year's UN Ocean Conference, the international community can use various international and regional gatherings to help advance these activation threads.

Prominent amongst these are COP16 in Colombia from 21 October to 3 November, COP29 in Azerbaijan in November, the Fifth Session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to develop a Global Plastic Treaty in South Korea and the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting in Davos in January. We must not waste the opportunities these fora present.