Understand

Oxygen dissolved in seawater supports the largest ecosystems on the planet. It is alarming that the ocean is losing oxygen, termed ocean deoxygenation, at a rapid rate, primarily due to global warming by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and pollution from nutrients and organic wastes particularly in coastal waters.

The Global Ocean Oxygen Decade (GOOD) is an endorsed programme of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) led by the Global Ocean Oxygen Network of IOC-UNESCO. GOOD will raise global awareness about ocean deoxygenation, provide knowledge for  action and develop mitigation and adaptation strategies and solutions to ensure continued provision of ecosystem services, and minimize impacts on the ocean economy through local, regional, and global efforts, including transdisciplinary research, innovative outreach, and ocean education and literacy.

The IOC is leading global efforts to understand the sources, fate and effects of plastics and microplastics in the marine environment. The IOC is lead agency, together with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), of Working Group 40 on Plastics and Micro-plastics in the Ocean of the Joint Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Environmental Protection (GESAMP).

Blue carbon ecosystems – mangroves, tidal and salt marshes, and seagrasses – are highly productive coastal ecosystems that are particularly important for their capacity to store carbon within the plants and in the sediments below, and are thereby considered a key component of nature-based solutions to climate change.