THE UNITED NATIONS - The oceans are not only under “unprecedented pressure” due to climate change, but “half of all living coral has been lost in the past 150 years”, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Monday, addressing the latest gathering of nations which are party to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
“In the past four decades, plastic pollution in the sea has increased ten-fold”, he told the meeting. A third of fish stocks are now overexploited; de-oxygenated dead zones are growing rapidly in extent and number; and ocean acidification, sea level rise and other impacts of climate change are “taking a massive toll”.
