2024’s top ocean news stories (commentary)

1. Long-awaited plastics treaty flops, for now

Despite around-the-clock efforts from delegates, negotiators and numerous advocacy groups, the fifth session of the U.N. Environment Programme’s Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5) on plastic pollution failed to pass the Global Plastics Treaty as a legally binding instrument by the end of negotiations Dec. 1. Recommended by a 2022 U.N. Environment Assembly resolution, the proposed treaty would end global plastic pollution by 2040.

Although marine plastic pollution is one of the greatest environmental problems facing planet Earth today, the treaty did not pass at least in part because of very strong lobbying by the petrochemical and plastic industries and some member states. Because INC-5 was unable to produce a treaty that would reduce global primary plastic polymer production, lower the amount of chemicals of concern and help eliminate plastic pollution in our oceans, an additional meeting, dubbed INC-5.2, is expected to officially conclude the negotiations in July or August 2025. This follow-up, and hopefully last, meeting will be of paramount importance to reiterate the need to limit global plastics production and eliminate pollution for marine life and the most vulnerable coastal communities who rely on the ocean for their livelihoods.

Among those present at INC-5 was the Scientists’ Coalition for an Effective Plastic Treaty, an international nonprofit of which one of us is a member. The coalition made the case for using science-based evidence to better target both sources of and solutions to plastic pollution, and it will continue to do so at INC-5.2, for our living blue planet and generations to come.

2. 2024, the hottest year on record

2024 is “effectively certain” to be the hottest year on record, according to the E.U.’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, adding to a decade of unprecedented heat. It is also the first year that monthly average global temperatures surpassed the 1.5° Celsius (2.7° Fahrenheit) warming threshold set by the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

While rising atmospheric temperatures have long worried scientists, consistently high ocean temperatures over the last two years raise new concerns. 2023 saw the hottest ocean temperature ever recorded: 38.4°C (101.1°F) off the coast of Florida. Typically, the world’s oceans act as a global warming safety net, absorbing and storing an estimated 91% of excess atmospheric heat caused by greenhouse gas emissions. Now that ocean temperatures are staying high, scientists worry that this heat sponge effect will be lost, creating a positive feedback loop of continually rising temperatures.

These high ocean temperatures have also had a deadly effect on marine life. In April, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the International Coral Reef Initiative, a conservation partnership, confirmed the fourth global coral bleaching event on record, which began in 2023. The current global bleaching event is the largest, topping the others in 1998, 2010 and 2014–17.

Although 2023-24 brought an El Niño climate pattern, which causes hotter temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, the extremely warm global ocean temperatures surpassed what’s considered normal for an El Niño year. The expected La Niña cooling cycle, which occurs between El Niño events and could bring some relief, has yet to develop.

3. First Indigenous climate refugees in Latin America leave home

In June, 300 Guna families from the island of Gardi Sugdub along the Caribbean coast of Panama received the keys to new homes in the mainland community of Isberyala. With this move, they became the first Indigenous community in Latin America to relocate due to climate change.

The Guna, with a population of about 60,000, reside across 49 of the approximately 370 islands composing the Guna Yala archipelago. Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute scientists, where one of us is employed, estimate that most of the archipelago’s inhabited islands will be underwater by the next century due to sea level rise. Community members first requested government assistance to move in 2010; it took years of planning to fulfill.

Climate migration, a strategy to adapt to a changing environment, is an increasingly pressing topic, particularly for vulnerable island and coastal residents. According to the NGO Human Rights Watch, as of 2024, 400 communities around the globe are in the process of relocating or already have relocated due to natural hazards, which climate change can exacerbate. The global coastal population is forecast to surpass 1 billion by 2100, and sea level rise will undoubtedly prompt further migrations from island and coastal communities.

In the case of Guna Yala, around 200 individuals decided to stay on Gardi Sugdub. Reports show that challenges remain for those who relocated, including access to electricity, clean drinking water, waste management, education and governance. This likely marks the beginning of a new era of climate migration fraught with complexities and questions about if and how adaptation can increase coastal community resilience.

4. Mapping advances help detect and protect mangrove ecosystems

The IUCN predicts that by 2050, nearly half of all mangrove ecosystems will be at risk of collapse. In order to better understand and protect these ecosystems, in 2024, researchers at the multi-sector collaboration Global Mangrove Alliance launched an updated mapping tool that improves our ability to detect mangrove ecosystems sixfold.

The tool, Global Mangrove Watch version 4.0 (GMW v4.0), uses optical and radar satellite data to generate higher resolution, more locally relevant data sets than its predecessor, with pixel resolutions of 10 meters (almost 33 feet). Considering that mangrove ecosystems make up a whopping 15% of the world’s coastlines and coincide with the majority of coastal and ocean-dependent communities (the “tropical majority”), these precise images enable locally driven solutions. GMW v4.0 is already being used by the Kenya Forest Service to detect real-time mangrove loss, indicative of potential illegal mangrove harvesting, through the tool’s new mangrove alerts functionality.

The improved precision of GMW v4.0 also contributed to the development of the IUCN’s first Red List of Mangrove Ecosystems, released in 2024. It classifies half the world’s mangrove areas as vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered and will inform global conservation priorities and funding.

These advancements are already helping policymakers, civil society leaders, researchers and local and Indigenous communities better protect and preserve mangrove ecosystems. As mapping technology improves, we must continue to include local and traditional knowledge holders within the tropical majority in the coproduction of mangrove conservation solutions.

5. Discovery of deep-sea ‘dark oxygen’ production brews controversy

A 2024 study reported unexpected oxygen production in the abyssal seafloor, a deep ocean zone that light can’t reach. Dubbed “dark oxygen” because its production doesn’t involve sunlight, this discovery uncovers a potentially new way that marine organisms receive the oxygen necessary to survive.

Experiments in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, an area of the Pacific Ocean between Mexico and Hawaii, documented oxygen levels up to three times the background concentration above rock-like polymetallic nodules on the seafloor. In the lab, scientists attributed the increase in oxygen to the nodules themselves. While the media covered this exciting news extensively, deep-sea mining companies and fellow scientists alike have criticized the research’s methodology and conclusions.

The deep sea has become a divisive space, particularly concerning deep-sea mining, which may soon become reality. In January 2024, Norway initiated a plan to open its seafloor to commercial mining despite widespread criticism; in December, the country’s Socialist Left Party blocked the effort. In Papua New Guinea, activists contend that mining in excess of legally allotted exploratory volumes already started in mid-2024 despite community opposition. The many unknowns of this ecosystem should be sufficient to slow our haste in pursuing deep-sea mining and adopt the precautionary principle. Moreover, the impacts of disrupting these ecosystems, sometimes formed over millions of years, are completely unclear.

While we acknowledge the experimental nature of dark oxygen research, we hope that further efforts can continue to show the incredible potential of our deep ocean and the importance of protecting these ancient seascapes.

6. Brazilian city grants legal personhood to waves

In a first-of-its-kind law passed in August, the Brazilian city of Linhares granted legal personhood to waves. This is the first known example of a government granting such rights to the ocean.

Under the new law, waves formed at the mouth of the Doce River in southeastern Brazil are considered living beings and have the intrinsic right to existence. This means the waves, and the river that feeds them, must be unimpeded and unpolluted. In the event their rights are violated, the waves will be granted human representatives to advocate on their behalf within the legal system.

Also in 2024, Indigenous leaders of New Zealand, Tahiti and the Cook Islands signed a treaty granting legal personhood to whales, which hold an ancient spiritual value for Indigenous groups across Polynesia. The treaty will be a basis for creating intergovernmental legal strategies to protect whales in the region.

The strategy of granting legal rights to the environment was first used in Ecuador in 2008 with the incorporation of a rights-of-nature law into the country’s national Constitution. This law has continued to protect the country’s resources; in 2024, it led to a court decision that the rights of a river had been violated by pollution. Governments in several countries, like Brazil, New Zealand and Spain, have followed suit with their own versions of legal personhood status for the environment, offering a promising avenue for conservation.

7. Acceleration in innovative finance for the ocean

With ocean-based industries projected to reach $3 trillion in annual value by 2030, the ocean is increasingly recognized as critical to the nexus among climate, development and the economy. To ensure sustainability of these industries, the concept of a regenerative blue economy has gained increasing attention in recent years, as reflected in a 2024 IUCN report. Blue finance plays a key role in achieving this vision, directing financial flows toward sustainable ocean investment through innovative tools, technologies and investable solutions. These mechanisms were prominent and wide-ranging in 2024, with international agencies, businesses, philanthropies and public-private collaborations driving a range of transformative ocean investments.

For instance, in 2024, Chicago-based Builders Vision became the first family office to participate in a debt for nature swap, contributing a $70 million co-guarantee toward a multi-partner project to refinance $300 million in the Bahamas’ debt. Lowering borrowing costs, this project aims to generate around $124 million in savings over the next 15 years that the Bahamas will put toward marine conservation.

The 30×30 Southeast Asia Ocean Fund is an example of a novel philanthropic collaboration, launched in October by family office Rumah Group and the Asia Community Foundation, both based in Singapore, and U.S.-based philanthropy Oceankind. With Southeast Asia housing around a third of the world’s coral reefs and mangroves, the fund will expand regional area-based conservation efforts and support ocean-dependent communities.

Blue finance momentum is also visible in the venture capital space to support innovation and entrepreneurship. Over the past eight years, this funding has grown fourfold, reaching its maximum in 2024 at $1.4 billion.

8. ‘Blue foods’ move into climate policy

Global fisheries and aquaculture production, collectively known as “blue foods,” reached all-time highs, with aquaculture outpacing capture fisheries for the first time in history, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s 2024 edition of its biannual publication The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture. In 2024, several initiatives nudged our reliance on blue foods toward alignment with climate goals.

In September, the Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions and several collaborators released new guidelines for integrating blue foods into national climate strategies ahead of a February 2025 deadline for parties to the Paris Agreement to update their emissions-reduction commitments. The guidelines highlight five key areas for action: Promoting sustainable consumption and diets, improving fisheries and aquaculture production, enhancing supply chains, and restoring blue carbon habitats like mangroves, which sequester significant amounts of carbon.

Additionally, the High-Quality Blue Carbon Practitioners Guide, which the Washington, D.C.-based multi-sector collaboration Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance released in October at the U.N. Biodiversity Conference (COP16) in Colombia, underscored the importance of addressing food security and other community needs in blue carbon projects, emphasizing a rights-based approach to ocean sustainability that prioritizes ecological and human well-being.

To continue driving this momentum forward globally, in 2024 the Blue Food Futures Program at the Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions, which is managed by an author of this story, launched a fellowship supporting early-career professionals from developing countries. Continued efforts by the blue food research community will be essential in delivering tools to build climate and nutrition literacy where it matters most.

9. 30×30 ocean progress

With less than six years remaining until 2030, a 2024 Protected Planet report highlighted that only 8.3% of the world’s marine area is protected and only 2.9% of it is fully or highly protected. This report showed that countries must rapidly accelerate action in order to achieve Target 3 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework: to protect 30% of the planet’s land and ocean by 2030 (also known as 30×30).

The High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, an intergovernmental coalition of 120 countries, was instrumental in the adoption of Target 3 and now focuses on supporting countries to achieve their 30×30 goals. The coalition, which is directed by an author of this story, drives momentum through political engagement, capacity-building, raising awareness and offering practical tools and resources to countries. In 2024, the coalition won the prestigious Earthshot Prize in the “Revive Our Oceans” category, including a 1 million-pound ($1.2 million) grant to scale up its efforts.

Also in 2024, during COP16, the international community reached important new agreements in support of 30×30, including a new process to identify ecologically or biologically significant marine areas as targets for protection that count toward 30×30.

Notably, in 2024, one report asked whether we are “on track or off course” to achieve Target 3, and a study showed that ocean protection quality lags behind quantity. These are important reflections on the 30×30 process that are informing the steps we must take over the next few years to achieve this critical target.

10. Progress toward inclusion of Indigenous peoples in ocean plans

Indigenous peoples and ways of knowing have long been excluded from global policy processes, particularly around the ocean economy, despite representing around 30 million people across the world. The High-Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, a coalition of 18 serving world leaders, finally acknowledged the vital contributions of Indigenous peoples by launching, at COP16, its newest publication, titled Co-producing Sustainable Ocean Plans with Indigenous and traditional knowledge holders.

The publication, co-authored with prominent Indigenous scholars, is one of two “blue papers” the panel published in 2024, the first since its original set of blue papers in 2020. The original set focused on economic growth and sustainability in the oceans but failed to incorporate Indigenous peoples’ and traditional communities’ rights and ways of life.

We are at a critical time for ocean planning to address and provide reparations for the historical marginalization of Indigenous peoples worldwide. 2024 global climate and biodiversity events called for sweeping action that aligns with the needs of the most vulnerable, and for the first time, a high-level ocean planning report — the panel’s blue paper — proposed specific ways for Indigenous peoples to be involved in decision-making. This includes making sure ocean planning with and for Indigenous peoples follows an inclusive, integrative and iterative process; creates content that is specific to a place, type of knowledge and ecosystem; and leads to impacts that are widely supported, well-financed and set up for success.

Banner image: A moray eel in the coral reefs of the Daymaniyat Islands, Oman. Image by Warren Baverstock / Ocean Image Bank.

Alfredo Giron is the head of the World Economic Forum’s Ocean Action Agenda and Friends of Ocean Action, leading strategy across a wide range of ocean work. He is based in Geneva and has wide experience spearheading the creation of public-private partnerships to address pressing ocean challenges related to marine conservation and restoration, sustainable fisheries management and accelerating the transition to a regenerative blue economy. Ana K. Spalding is a marine social scientist and director of the Adrienne Arsht Community-Based Resilience Solutions Initiative at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, where she stewards marine conservation and ocean governance through science, innovation and equity. Andrés Cisneros-Montemayor is a resource economist specializing in ocean and coastal social-ecological systems. He is also deputy director of Nippon Foundation Ocean Nexus and an assistant professor at Simon Fraser University’s School of Resource and Environmental Management in British Columbia, Canada. Asha de Vos is a Sri Lankan marine biologist, author, scientific adviser to the U.N. secretary-general and founder of Oceanswell, Sri Lanka’s first conservation and research education organization. Cinda P. Scott is director of the School for Field Studies Center for Tropical Island Biodiversity Studies in Bocas del Toro, Panama. Her recent studies include the cultural valuation of marine ecosystem services and equitable use of mangrove ecosystems. Josheena Naggea is a Mauritian interdisciplinary researcher and Blue Food Futures Program manager at Stanford University’s Center for Ocean Solutions in California. Her research focuses on community-driven climate adaptation, disaster recovery, marine protected area management and the integration of natural and cultural heritage into marine governance. Juan José Alava is an Ecuadorian-Canadian marine ecotoxicologist and conservation biologist based at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries at the University of British Columbia, where he is the principal investigator of the Ocean Pollution Research Unit. He is also an adjunct professor at Simon Fraser University’s School of Resource and Environmental Management. He is a member of the Scientists’ Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty. Olivia Milloway, science writer for the Adrienne Arsht Community-Based Resilience Solutions Initiative at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, contributed editorial support to this piece. You can see her portfolio at olivia-milloway.info/. Rita Maria el Zaghloul is director of the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People. With degrees in international relations and conflict, security and development, she previously served as minister counselor at the Permanent Mission of Costa Rica to the United Nations. A dual citizen from Costa Rica and Lebanon, she is fluent in Arabic, Spanish, French and English.

2023’s top ocean news stories (commentary)

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