What receives leaders’ attention, investment and institutional commitment is rarely accidental (Kiara Worth/UN Climate Change)

The ocean is missing from climate diplomacy. Again.

Glaciers and forests get their own session at this year’s climate summit – the sea that regulates it all does not.

Larelle Bossi

6 November 20264 min read

There is something absurd about the rhythm of international environmental diplomacy. The world gathers, negotiates, announces ambitious targets, celebrates agreements, and reconvenes to discover that the environment has continued moving in precisely the wrong direction. The conclusion? Another plan.

The UN biodiversity summit, COP17 (Opens in new window), concluded in Yerevan last week with a sobering assessment (Opens in new window): the world remains off track to meet its 2030 biodiversity targets. Countries responded by agreeing to the Yerevan Pathway, another plan to accelerate implementation. Meanwhile, financing remains inadequate, progress painfully slow, and the gap between international commitments and ecological reality continues to widen. There were advances, including stronger arrangements for Indigenous peoples and local communities. But recognition is not authority, participation is not necessarily justice, and another pathway, without the resources or the backing to deliver it, is hardly cause for celebration.

Barely has the ink dried, and the international community is preparing for COP31 (Opens in new window), the UN climate summit in Türkiye. One might reasonably expect the ocean to occupy a central place. After all, it absorbs more than 90% of the excess heat generated by global warming. It regulates our climate, sustains biodiversity, supports food security and livelihoods, and underpins the cultural identities and futures of millions. Without a functioning ocean, there is no functioning climate system.

Yet COP31’s proposed high-level events reveal a curious hierarchy of priorities: Electrification. Power grids. Green industrialisation. Finance. Forests. Waste. Methane. All deserving political attention. But where is the ocean?

Not one of the 15 listed high-level events (Opens in new window) is explicitly dedicated to it. Forests warrant dedicated leaders’ discussions and financing initiatives. Even glaciers have their own high-level event. Yet the ocean, covering more than 70% of our planet, appears to have been left without a comparable seat at the table. Sure, the ocean features elsewhere in COP31’s Action Agenda (Opens in new window). But political prominence matters. What receives leaders’ attention, investment and institutional commitment is rarely accidental. It raises an uncomfortable question: have we reduced climate action to electrifying the economy?

Have we reduced climate action to electrifying the economy? (Eskinder Debebe/UN Photo)

Electrification is essential. The transition away from fossil fuels is urgent. But replacing one energy system with another does not resolve the ecological and ethical crises that brought us here. We can electrify transport and industry while continuing to degrade marine ecosystems, marginalise Indigenous peoples, displace coastal communities and treat the ocean as an inexhaustible economic resource. A cleaner economy is not necessarily a more just one. Nor is it automatically ecologically sustainable.

A cleaner economy is not necessarily a more just one.

This is where Australia’s relationship with the Pacific deserves scrutiny. Australia’s COP31 role, including chairing negotiations, was accompanied by commitments to elevate Pacific priorities. The Pacific pre-COP (Opens in new window) in Fiji and Tuvalu offered an opportunity to place the region’s experiences, leadership and demands at the centre of climate diplomacy. For Pacific nations, climate change is inseparable from ocean health, sovereignty, cultural continuity, food security and intergenerational justice. So, what happens to those priorities when diplomacy moves from the Pacific to Antalya?

The proposed Pacific Resilience Facility pledging (Opens in new window) event is welcome. Finance matters enormously for countries bearing disproportionate climate impacts. But Pacific leadership cannot be reduced to seeking financial assistance for climate resilience. Pacific nations offer something more profound: an understanding of the ocean not merely as a resource to manage, but as a living system to which people belong and bear responsibilities. That understanding should be shaping global climate governance, not decorating its margins.

There are reasons for cautious optimism, although the contradictions are difficult to ignore. COP17 (Opens in new window) acknowledged that the ocean has been overlooked for too long, yet stopped short of new legally binding commitments. Days later, as attention turns to COP31, the ocean remains conspicuously absent from the proposed leaders’ agenda.

The first global assessment under the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (Opens in new window) explicitly recognises Sustainable Ocean Plans as an approach to implementation. Advanced through the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy (Opens in new window), these plans offer countries a way to coordinate decisions across fisheries, conservation, restoration, tourism, offshore energy and the wider ocean economy.

Protecting 30% of the ocean cannot compensate for degrading the remaining 70%. Nor can marine protected areas succeed while institutions governing fisheries, pollution and waste, development and energy pursue conflicting priorities. But promising frameworks need political traction. Elevating the ocean–climate nexus (Opens in new window) was an explicit priority of the Australia–Pacific COP31 Partnership. The Pacific pre-COP was intended to bring the region’s priorities to the centre of international climate diplomacy. Yet as leaders prepare to gather in Antalya, where has that ambition gone?

Australia is helping lead a high-level discussion on electrification and supporting a Pacific resilience financing event. While both matter, neither substitutes for political leadership on the ocean. How does an ocean-centred region, championing an ocean-centred climate agenda, arrive at a leaders’ summit without a dedicated discussion on the ocean?

The ocean has not disappeared entirely. It remains in the Action Agenda and pavilion discussions. But there is a profound difference between appearing on a program and shaping political decisions. How can Australia now demonstrate that its Pacific partnership extends beyond diplomatic commitments? The ocean needs a place at the leaders’ table, backed by investment, accountability and action, otherwise, we risk repeating the familiar cycle: ambitious commitments made in the Pacific, applauded internationally, and quietly diluted when the real political decisions are made elsewhere.

About the author

Larelle Bossi

Dr Larelle Bossi is an ocean ethicist working on values-led ocean governance, with a focus on the Pacific and global ocean policy.

Topics

Climate & environment Diplomacy