The importance of the world's oceans cannot be overstated. They supply 50 percent of the oxygen we breathe, feed billions of people and provide livelihoods for millions more. They are the great biological pump of global atmospheric and thermal regulation, and the driver of the water and nutrient cycles. And they are among the most powerful tools for mitigating the effects of climate change. In short, the oceans are a critical ally, and we must do everything in our power to safeguard them.
This is all the more important, given the unprecedented and unpredictable threats that we currently face. Though the ocean has been integral to slowing climate change, absorbing over 30 percent of the greenhouse-gas emissions and 90 percent of the excess heat generated since the Industrial Revolution, the cost has been huge. Ocean acidification and warming has been occurring at alarming rates, and are already having a serious impact on some of our most precious marine ecosystems — an impact that will only intensify.
Today, vast swaths of the world are experiencing what is likely to be the strongest El Nino on record. The adverse weather resulting from the phenomenon — which originates in the Pacific, but affects all oceans worldwide — is expected to affect adversely over 60 million people this year, compounding the misery wrought last year. It is a sobering reminder of our vulnerability to both natural and human-induced shocks to the Earth's systems.