It is fully within our power to guarantee a healthy ocean and protect it for the future, says Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry in today’s episode of the New Security Broadcast. Kerry spoke at a recent Wilson Center event hosted in partnership with the Embassy of Panama to spotlight the 8^th Our Oceans Conference, scheduled to take place in March in Panama. In his remarks, Kerry emphasized the vital role the ocean plays in supporting global food security and economic prosperity as well as the imperative to take action to protect the ocean from climate change.

Select Quotes:

“[The ocean has] played a huge, central role in the lives of people all around the planet, many of whom are part of the 500-billion-dollar industry that depends on the ocean for food production, for protein, for life itself…but the fact is that ninety percent of all the heating of the planet from global climate change is subsumed into the ocean and the ocean is warming.”

 “In our country the link between climate and oceans is becoming indelibly imprinted in people’s minds. You cannot solve the problem of the oceans—i.e., bad emissions dropping into the ocean and changing the chemistry of the ocean—you can’t change that if you don’t deal with the climate crisis.”

“The United States has announced three new bilateral work streams to facilitate green shipping corridors within the Republic of Korea Canada and the United Kingdom. If shipping were a nation state it would be the eighth largest emitter on the planet so we have an imperative to move. I’m really proud to say that it was at the Our Oceans Conferences that we first started focusing in on shipping practices, and now as a result of that we are seeing the largest container shippers in the world 65 percent of the new ships ordered are ordered with dual fuel propulsion systems and over a hundred ships have been ordered that are now going to be zero emissions. That came out of the oceans conference.”