Pakistan calls for addressing multiple challenges world’s oceans face

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 13 (APP): Pakistan Wednesday underscored the need for overcoming the challenges facing the world’s oceans, which sustain life on Earth, saying climate change is warming the seas, disrupting weather patterns, and altering marine ecosystems.

“Marine biodiversity is suffering from over-exploitation and ocean acidification, with over one-third of fish stocks harvested unsustainably,” Ambassador Usman Jadoon, deputy permanent representative of Pakistan to the United Nations, told a meeting of the parties to U.N. Law of the Sea Convention (UNCLOS).

“Coastal waters are polluted with chemicals, plastics, and other waste,” Ambassador Jadoon said.

Additionally, he said, climate change is warming the oceans, disrupting weather patterns and currents, and altering marine ecosystems.

The 1982 Law of the Sea Convention sets forth a comprehensive legal framework for the use and protection of the sea, the seabed and subsoil, and the marine environment, including both natural and cultural resources.

Ambassador Jadoon underscored the importance of the work of UNCLOS’s three bodies — the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS), and the International Seabed Authority (ISA), saying they were dealing with the issues before them.

He also praised the work of ITLOS and acknowledged its advisory opinion on climate change and international law, which underscores the obligations of States Parties under UNCLOS to mitigate marine pollution from greenhouse gas emissions.

Ambassador Jadoon reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment to UNLOS and its 1994 Implementing Agreement on the 30th anniversary of its entry into force.

He also reiterated Pakistan’s support of the 2030 Agenda, including Sustainable Development Goal 14, on the conservation and sustainable use of oceans.