ESG Investing /
Viewpoint
Putting oceans at centre of COP31
Last year’s UN Climate Change Conference in Belém, Brazil, put forests high on the climate agenda. This month’s UN Climate Change Conference in Antalya, Turkey, can do the same for the ocean, whose warming threatens not just food and energy security but global survival
Peter Thomson
8 Nov 2026
For over 30 years, Pacific Island countries have issued the same warning at the annual United Nations Climate Change Conference: the warming ocean threatens not just food and energy security, but global survival itself. And almost every year, our warning has been treated as a regional problem, a challenge confined to remote small islands and thus not warranting more than lip service from international leaders.