THE UN HIGH SEAS TREATY

In a momentous development, the United Nations has approved a historic pact that would protect marine life in international seas that are not under any nation's control.

High Seas are defined as the part of the sea that is not included in the exclusive economic zone, in the territorial sea, or in the internal waters of a coastal state or archipelagic waters of an archipelagic state.

More than 190 nations achieved a deal on 11 March 2023 in New York after almost two decades of diplomatic bickering and a frantic two-weeks final sprint.

The so-called high seas, which make up more than 60% of the world's oceans, are home to several ecosystems, a wide variety of marine life, and undiscovered species. Yet in the absence of a priority-setting agreement, the region has come under a patchwork of rules and laws that have encouraged exploitation and environmental destruction.

Countries discussed a variety of complex topics throughout the discussions, such as how to divide any possible earnings from marine resources and where to locate marine protected zones.

However, there are still some issues with implementation and the treaty has yet to be fully ratified.

Yet the accord alone represents a substantial advance that will open the door for stronger environmental protection.

The U.N. Environment Program’s executive director, Inger Andersen, referred to it as a "historic milestone," while Greenpeace praised it as "the largest conservation win ever."

"This action is a success for multilateralism and for global efforts to prevent the harmful trends threatening ocean health, now and for future generations," said U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres.

Atlantic Ocean Dead Zones Forecast

Now the not good news.

Researchers from North Carolina University have shown that the expansion of ‘dead zones’ in the Atlantic Ocean is a result of climate change, according to an overview of the latter's condition in 100 years.

For instance, researchers have shown that oxygen dissolves less readily as temperature rises. The mapping of ‘dead zones,’ those areas with low oxygen levels that pose a hazard to species, are determined in connection to the constants of the Pliocene epoch (-5.3 to -2.6 million years ago) and remains the most fascinating aspect of their investigation.

The map that has been developed demonstrates that, at the present time, the Atlantic Ocean, particularly in its northern section, has substantially more waters with low oxygen concentration compared with the Pliocene era, where ‘dead zones’ are shown on the bottom map.

AlkaLINIty and Co2 soaking limits

In another study from the University of Oxford geoengineering program, researchers examined a climate simulation set up for the worst-case emissions scenario and discovered that the oceans' capacity to absorb carbon dioxide will peak by 2100 and decline to 50% by 2300.

The amount of CO2 that may dissolve in saltwater depends on a chemical characteristic called alkalinity.

The decrease is brought on by the development of a layer of low-alkalinity water at the ocean's surface that prevents the seas from absorbing CO2.

Around a third of the CO2 emissions produced by humans today are absorbed by the seas. Prior to this, climate models had shown that the oceans' rate of CO2 uptake slowed with time, but none had taken alkalinity into account.

The researchers came to their conclusion by recalculating portions of a 450-year simulation until they identified alkalinity as a significant factor in the slowdown.

The results show that severe climate change, which intensifies rainfall and slows ocean currents, is the first factor to have an impact. This results in a warm freshwater layer covering the ocean's top that is difficult to mix with the cooler, more alkaline waters below it.

Its top layer's alkalinity decreases as CO2 saturation increases, which affects its capacity to absorb CO2. A surface layer that serves as a barrier against CO2 absorption is the ultimate outcome.

As a result, fewer greenhouse gases enter the water and more remain in the atmosphere. Faster warming is the result, which maintains and fortifies the low-alkalinity surface layer. Simply said, a vicious cycle!

The revelation serves as a stark warning that to prevent reaching this and future tipping points, global CO2 emissions must be reduced.

There might be a chain of related disasters in our future that we must avert at all costs, whether it be this or the melting of the ice sheets.

We Need To Weight The Planet

Scientists have relentlessly warned that rising temperatures will result in increased severe rains and more extensive droughts, as well as wetter and drier worldwide extremes. Recent research from the University of Maryland that was just published in Nature demonstrates where that may already be taking place.

The research offers a growing picture of the distortions in the overall quantity of water, both above ground and in aquifers far below the Earth's surface, where most of the freshwater on which people rely originates.

It is based on information from NASA's Grace project, also known as the ‘Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment,’ which employs satellites that can monitor changes in gravity to quantify water variations in areas where other satellites cannot. In this manner, it may provide details about areas where wells or gauges would not otherwise be present. We just lack information on the evolution of groundwater storage for the majority of the planet.

Grace crosses those boundaries and disseminates knowledge everywhere. Between 2002 and 2021, the project discovered 505 wet episodes and 551 dry ones. It gave each one an "intensity" rating in order to rank them, based on the severity of an incident, its length, and the quantity of damaged land area.

The project used Python code for an ST-DBSCAN clustering technique to process this massive quantity of data.

The Grace data includes the measurement of changes that last over extended periods of time. It follows longer-lasting catastrophes that develop over months or years rather than transient flash floods during an otherwise typical season.

Using satellite measurements from the previous 20 years, the project set out to rank the greatest droughts and rainy spells. But when the data was analyzed, it quickly became clear that both kinds of incidents were more frequent – and becoming worse as the research came to a close.

The researchers evaluated the relationship between monthly wet and dry intensities and world average temperatures as well as other well-known climatic variables to determine if global warming should be blamed for the changes

The researchers discovered that global average temperatures and other indicators, such as El Nino, the sporadic change in Pacific Ocean water temperatures that may have a large impact on heat and precipitation, showed a stronger link with one another.

The discovery increases the likelihood that as the planet heats, severe events will occur more often and be stronger.

In terms of climatic time scales, 20 years of data is a very small sample size. More research is still needed on groundwater changes, especially at the extremes, to examine the impact of global warming. Yet, the association is more obvious for precipitation over shorter time frames.

The rise in severe precipitation with climate change is one of the reliably observed elements of water cycle extremes with the capacity to weigh on the planet constantly.

Trillion Of Pieces Of Plastic In The Ocean

According to the most recent figures from 2020, there may be over 170 trillion plastic particles in the world's seas.

The exponential rise of microplastics in the world's seas shifts our attention away from cleaning and recycling, and ushers in a new era of corporate accountability for the whole life of the products they produce.

We have heard about recycling for too long, but the plastic industry refuses any promises to acquire recycled material or design with recycling in mind.

Cleanup has no end and is consequently pointless if we keep producing plastic at the same pace. The evidence is that it is time to tackle the plastic issue from the root.

In UNEA (United Nations Environment Assembly) in 2020 Member States passed a resolution to stop plastic pollution.

But it is very uncertain how it will turn out. The onus for accountability may shift from consumers to producers if severe regulatory changes are required to encourage reduction and reuse rather than recycling.

Environmentalists want to see a worldwide agreement that covers the whole life cycle of plastic, from extraction and production to disposal.

Now what is wrong with disposables and single-use plastic? The issue is that there is now more single-use trash than we know what to deal with.

8.3 billion tons of plastic alone are thought to be in the environment, and 79% of all plastic ever produced is still present in our landfills and waterways. Just 9% of it has been recycled; the rest has been burned.

Businesses who care about the environment are converting to reusable products and packaging and this is a fairly reasonable beginning on this side.

But we have another giant problem: the Nurdles. Or the raw material for the plastics industry.

These lentil-sized plastic pellets are packed and exported in their billions throughout the globe, where they are subsequently melted down and utilized as the raw materials for a wide range of everyday things, including clothing, vehicles, computers, and drink bottles. While nurdles weren't initially discovered on beaches until 1970, they have subsequently been discovered on every continent.

They travel via storm drains, rivers, and streams before ending up in our seas, where they are ultimately carried by wind and ocean currents to every part of our planet. Nevertheless, because of their size, they are very hard to remove.

Nurdles are one of the most significant causes of pollution in our seas, but they are disregarded despite the destruction they do to the ecosystem and marine life. They often only make the news when big container leaks occur while being transported at sea.

One such incident occurred in 2021 in pristine waters off the coast of Sri Lanka. The resulting pollution has had a severe negative effect on the economy, society, and environment. Marine ecosystems are now destroyed, over 20,000 fishermen are unable to fish in the region, and they are losing their source of income: particularly on the shore, there are still a lot of burned microplastics and plastic needles buried in the water and sand.

They last for 500 to 1,000 years because they decay slowly. They will have an impact on tourism and way of life for years to come, in addition to the health of humans and marine life.

Seabirds and fish consume nurdles, which are sometimes mistaken for fish eggs, resulting in malnutrition and hunger.

Together with the chemicals employed in their manufacture, the high amounts of environmental contaminants that they take in also end up in marine life.

These dangerous compounds not only accumulate farther up the food chain, but they may also enter our bodies via the fish and shellfish we consume, leading to a range of health issues.

Microplastics were first discovered in human organs and newborns in 2020. They were even found in human blood in 2022.

For over 25 years, a multinational program by the plastics sector called Operation Clean Sweep (OCS) has aimed to reduce the amount of waste that ends up in the environment. Businesses who participate in this program since 2018 are given instructions on how to assist in avoiding pellet loss from their premises.

OCS is an excellent place to start, but enrollment is optional and there are no controls in place to ensure that commitments are kept.

A small portion of the estimated 55,000 enterprises participating in the supply chain in Europe have signed up for this plan, which does not reflect the whole of the global plastics supply chain.

Fidra is an environmental charity that works to eliminate chemical and plastic pollution. With its ‘Great World Nurdle Hunt,’ Fidra seeks to learn more about the density and dispersion of nurdles. In 91% of the participating nations in 2021, nurdles were discovered... Some 30 years after Operation Clean Sweep began, there are still no worldwide standards for people working in the plastics business to guarantee best practices, despite increased awareness of the critical need to stop nurdles escaping into the environment.

Supply chain management is what Fidra is urging. It is at this point that all firms handling plastic pellets, from petrochemical plants producing billions of pellets every hour to those shipping pellets across the globe to microbusinesses purchasing bags of pellets to build goods should employ best practice standards.

Wishful thinking or otherwise?