The President of the United Nations General Assembly opened the trading day in New York this morning to send the message that the world’s ocean health is in distress.
“The ocean is in trouble,” said Peter Thomson prior to ringing the Opening Bell of the Nasdaq Stock Market in its Times Square headquarters.
Outlining the perils that lie ahead for the world’s oceans – including warming, acidification, declining fish stocks and a growing hypoxic zone where no life exists – Mr. Thomson noted that as for marine pollution, “there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish by 2050, if we continue on these current trends.”
He highlighted The Ocean Conference in June, citing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a programme “to reverse the cycle of decline in which the ocean has been caught.”
Hailing from the island State of Fiji, Mr. Thomson has throughout the Assembly’s Seventy-First session raised global awareness of the SDGs – with a particular spotlight on Goal 14, conservation and sustainable use of the ocean’s resource.
Turning to the general sustainability of the earth’s resources, he stressed that “from the elimination of poverty to the protection of our environment,” the 17 SDGs encapsulated the way to “secure place on this planet for humanity.”
