Governments discussing the fate of the world’s oceans promised yesterday to reduce pollution, curb overfishing and protect vulnerable coastal communities from the effects of climate change.
The lofty vows were set out in a declaration adopted by government officials from more than 80 countries who gathered this week in Indonesia’s northeastern city of Manado. But there were no specifics measures to achieve those goals.
Participants at the World Ocean Conference talked about the vital role seas play in absorbing greenhouse gas emissions and how they are affected when higher temperatures melt polar ice sheets, cause sea levels to rise and fuel devastating and more frequent storms.
PHOTO: AFP
They warned that climate change could wipe out entire ecosystems and could destroy the livelihoods and homes of as many as 100 million people this century in Southeast Asia as fish are killed off and coastal communities flooded.
“The changes we expected to see are actually happening faster than we thought,” said Mary Glackin, US deputy undersecretary for oceans and atmosphere, pointing, for example, to quickly melting ice sheets.
And as oceans take up carbon, they are becoming more acidic, eroding sea shells, bleaching coral and killing other marine life, the US delegate said, “so that is an unexpected thing.”
Those gathering in Manado said that climate change was not the only thing jeopardizing the world’s oceans: Pollution and destructive fishing techniques were also playing a devastating role.
They vowed to address some of those issues immediately, but calls for action were not specific.
“We will strive to reduce pollution of the ocean, coastal and land areas and to promote sustainable management of fisheries,” they wrote in a declaration, calling also for the protection of mangroves, wetlands and coral reefs.
Efforts also will be made to protect the most vulnerable communities that “fully depend on marine resources” and to improve technology needed to answer the many questions that remain about oceans.
They also called for additional funding to help countries adapt to climate change and create sustainable jobs.
The two-day conference was set to wrap up later yesterday.
One of the hopes of attendees was that the conference would help heighten awareness about the need to include oceans in the larger debate about global warming.
Many scientists want oceans on the agenda when governments gather in December at a UN climate change meeting in Denmark to draft a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
RSS