Are we too late? A Miami teen shares her hopes and fears for the planet at UN Ocean Conference 

By Alexa Charouhis, We Are Forces of Nature

The United Nations Ocean Conference held last week in Nice, France, was billed as an opportunity to protect the oceans, slow climate change and save the planet. With the pressure on to deliver unprecedented action, about 170 nation representatives, 60 heads of state, 2,000 scientists and 15,000 business and community leaders showed up.

On the sidelines of the conference, nearly 100,000 visitors watched and waited to see whether this latest gathering of nations delivers more than declarations – because, for the oceans and the billions of people who rely on them, time is running out.

With 12 island nations set to disappear beneath the waves this century and 60% of my own community of Miami-Dade County on track for possible submersion by 2050, I looked forward to what I hoped would be a breakthrough forum of progress and solutions. 

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres opened the conference with a stark warning that increasing temperatures, mounting plastic pollution, collapsing fish stocks and rising seas are threatening humanity’s very survival. Reminding nations that our oceans provide food for more than 3 billion people, Prince William urged cooperative protections “to save our world.”

French President Emmanuel Macron made a forceful appeal for “collective action.” Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves Robles urged a shift from “exploitation to stewardship.” And former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, attending the conference without backing of the current administration, urged nations to step up and ratify the High Seas Treaty, a historic agreement 20 years in the making that could turn the formidable tide.

As I listened to the urgent pleas for action crucial to humanity’s survival – cloaked in platitudes and off-repeated words such as transparency, collaboration and multilateralism – I wondered if this time, at this conference, the world might step up to give meaning to these words.

Invited to speak at the Panel on Oceans, Climate Change, and Biodiversity, and following powerful appeals from the heads of Papua, Antigua and Barbados, I shared the small actions my organization is taking in Miami, and in partnership with youth in Gabon, Peru and the Dominican Republic. Our commitments include restoring a million mangroves by 2030, and providing $10,000 in financial support for girls’ secondary education in undeveloped coastal communities most impacted by climate change. I encouraged the adults in the room to switch from pleas to action, because the planet is running out of time.

Though I hold no illusions that my voice had any real additive effect, national voluntary commitments made during the conference pledged progress. Promises included the European Commission’s 1 billion Euro investment to support ocean conservation; French Polynesia’s creation of the world’s largest protected marine area; Indonesia’s and the World Bank’s groundbreaking financial plan for coral reef conservation; and financial commitments by New Zealand ($52 million U.S. dollars), Germany ($100 million), Italy ($6.5 million) and Canada ($9 million).

And just moments before the final conference bell, as lead negotiators rushed to save humanity from itself, Belgium and Greece joined as the last signatories to the High Seas Treaty, a landmark deal intended to provide a tidal wave of hope for our oceans and planet. Hundreds of boats, clustered in the Mediterranean just off the shores of Nice, sounded their foghorns for the celebratory moment. 

But as attendees exited the conference in fanfare, the grim faces of the ministers from the Marshall Islands and Papua told another story, their countries’ fates ceded to impending sea level rise. Halting fossil fuel extraction, necessary to stop our oceans from overheating, was left out of the conversation. Funding necessary to ensure the sustainability of our marine ecosystems, pegged at $175 billion annually, stalled at $10 billion.

The High Seas Treaty, 20 years in the making, fell shy of the 60 signatories needed to curb overfishing and halt ocean pollution. Major emitters including China, the United States, India and Japan declined to ratify, leaving the foundational agreement legally unenforceable.

And away from the press on the other side of the main conference tents, about 2,000 scientists gathering for the One Ocean Science Congress exchanged bleak stats revealing a planetary unravelling. The world’s most vital ecosystem, responsible for generating the oxygen essential to our very survival, remains in freefall.

With more than one-third of fish stocks already overfished and 97% of migratory fish threatened with extinction, a dangerous decrease in fish populations could leave billions of people facing economic collapse and food insecurity by 2048. Ocean heat is gripping the planet as last month’s temperatures push us toward the hottest year on record. And if world leaders needed a reminder, the conference closed with the highest-ever temperature recorded for June 13.

Packing away my laptop with my carefully crafted speech pleading for change, I headed out of the U.N. Ocean Conference with a mix of hope and fear. While technocratic fixes and aspirational promises won’t save us, world leaders arrived in Nice with an unprecedented will to protect our oceans and set in motion much-needed forward momentum.

This November, 197 countries will try again at the COP30 U.N. climate conference in Belem, Brazil, hoping to put enough action into play to ensure humanity’s survival. But for some coastal communities, time has already run out.

Alexa Charouhis is a 15-year-old environmentalist from Miami and the president of We Are Forces of Nature, a youth-led organization working to halt climate change. She leads the Fashions Forward Initiative, reintroducing vintage clothing into the circular economy, with all proceeds supporting girls secondary education in developing coastal communities most impacted by climate change. She can be reached at volunteer@weareforcesofnature.org.

Sign up for The Invading Sea newsletter by visiting here. To support The Invading Sea, click here to make a donation. If you are interested in submitting an opinion piece to The Invading Sea, email Editor Nathan Crabbe at ncrabbe@fau.edu. Banner photo: A school of mackerel in the ocean (iStock image).