Lisbon: The world must do more to stop the dramatic decline in ocean health, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Sunday, urging young people gathered in Carcavelos, Portugal, for a UN Youth and Innovation Forum to step up because his generation’s leaders had moved far too slow. The two-day event brought together hundreds of youth from some 165 countries with a shared goal: protecting the Ocean.
Speaking in front of 100 youth advocates who gathered to inspire, amplify, and accelerate youth action for our ocean, Guterres reiterated the need to rescue the planet. At Carcavelos beach, on the edge of the ocean near the centre of his home city, Lisbon, the Secretary-General apologized on behalf of his generation for the state of the oceans, for the state of biodiversity and for the state of climate change.
“My generation, and those who were politically responsible – which is my case – we were slow or sometimes unwilling to recognize that things were getting worse and worse in these three dimensions: oceans, climate, and biodiversity,” Guterres told the lively crowd. Adding that globally, the world is still moving too slow and must act now to start rehabilitating the oceans, rescuing biodiversity, and halting climate change, the UN chief stressed that “it is a generational responsibility that goes far beyond political leaders.”
Telling the young audience that there is an area of plastics in the Pacific Ocean – a huge floating ‘dump’ of plastic containers, bottles and other detritus widely referred to as ‘the Great Pacific Garbage Patch – that is larger than France, Guterres said: “we are still throwing 8 million tons of plastics to the ocean, every year.”
Because of this and more, the youth will inherit a planet in trouble, the UN chief, warned and told the gathered youth that they would need “to do everything to reverse everything” – reverse political decisions, reverse economic decisions, and reverse individual behaviours. “Let’s be honest, when I look at myself and my own behaviour, my footprint on the planet is too big,” the Secretary-General admitted.
Just ahead of the Secretary-General’s address, global movie star and ocean activist Jason Momoa made a special appearance alongside UN Special Envoy for the Ocean Peter Thomson. Under the blazing sun at Carcavelos beach, surrounded on the wide sandy beach by youth, including his own children, Mr. Momoa said the work he was doing was “for them and the generations to come”.
Receiving ‘Nature’s Baton’ from Special Envoy Peter Thomson, Momoa said the baton, which symbolizes the fact that the world’s existential challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss are inseparably linked with the state of the ocean’s health, had been going around the world and it would continue to do so as an enduring symbol to leaders.
“The time to act is now. Our ocean is in trouble, if we combine ambition, dedication and hope, we can change these outcomes,” he said. “The ocean, where the water begins and ends its journey, enables systems to work for the wellbeing of humans and non-humans alike. Without a healthy ocean, life as we know it wouldn’t exist”, the actor added. /BI/
