The United Nations meeting of its 193 members in New York this week will not attract media headlines because the top political leaders will not be attending it, but the conference on the Inter-governmental Conference on Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction, which will be on till March 3, is a key issue in combating climate change. The high seas or the open oceans are the neglected in climate negotiations because they fall beyond national territorial waters and no one can make any commitments.

But they are the most crucial areas that serve as a lifeline to the people living on continents and islands, experts say. “The ocean is the life support system of our planet,” according to Boris Worm at Canada’s Dalhousie University. He said, “For the longest time we did not feel we had a large impact on the high seas. But that notion has changed with the expansion of deep-sea fishing, mining, plastic pollution, climate change.”

There is a sense of urgency then that an agreement has to be reached among all the countries to protect marine biodiversity of the oceans and protocols evolved. For many decades now there have been specific international agreements like the one related to whaling. When it became evident that the whale population is dwindling rapidly, a ban was imposed on whaling. Countries like Japan were affected, but they had no option but to follow the rule banning whaling. Later, Japan wanted to resume whaling once the numbers of the whales recovered.

Now there is the need felt that the whole of marine life of the oceans has to be protected, and this has a vital link to life of the people on the land. Nicholas Clark, an oceans expert at Pew Research Centre in Washington D.C. said, “The goal is to set up a new body that would accept submissions for specific marine protected areas.” He described the oceans as “global commons”. There has been an attempt to evolve a treaty to protect marine biodiversity of the oceans for the last 15 years, and a fortnight-long UN conference in 2022 failed to make any breakthrough.

There is the UN Biodiversity Conference’s pledge to preserve 30 per cent of the oceans for conservation. But it would not be possible until there is a formal and binding agreement among all the countries. Says Jessica Battle, the oceans expert at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), “We need a legally binding framework that can enable countries to work together to actually achieve these goals they’ve agreed to.”

The United States has declared that a treaty on marine biodiversity is a priority for it. Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs Monica Medina said, “This agreement seeks to create, for the first time, a coordinated approach to establish marine protected areas on the high seas.” Gladys Martinez de Lemos, executive director of non-profit Interamerican Association for Environmental Defence, which focuses on environmental issues of Latin America, said, “The treaty should be strong and ambitious, having authority to establish high and fully protected areas in the high seas. Half the world is at stake these weeks at the United Nations.”

The high seas then seem to have become important on the global climate change agenda, and there is the realisation that the oceans are an important link in the life system of the planet. It cannot be ignored and isolated. It does not however mean that an agreement will be reached. But the pressure is increasing on governments and policy-makers that it is an issue of burning importance. It cannot be put on the backburner any more.