The Second World Ocean Assessment (WOA II) was launched on 21 April 2021. It is the major output of the second cycle of the UN Regular Process for Global Reporting and Assessment of the States of the Marine Environment (UN Regular Process). With the contribution of hundreds of scientists around the world, the WOA II is the most recent report of the only integrated assessment of the world’s ocean covering environmental, economic and social aspects.
“In 2015, the first World Ocean Assessment warned that many areas of the ocean had been seriously degraded, the greatest threat to the ocean being the failure to deal with the many pressures caused by human activities. The message in the second World Ocean Assessment is that the situation has not improved, with the many benefits that the ocean provides at risk. The Assessment advises that, to ensure sustainability, we must work together to improve integrated ocean management, including through joint research, capacity development and the sharing of data, information and technology”, Antonio Gueterres, UN Secretary-General
One of the priority actions of the G7 Future of the Seas and Oceans Initiative (G7 FSOI) is to support an enhanced system of ocean assessment through the UN Regular Process. To achieve this, the G7 FSOI Coordination Centre, led by the EU4OceanObs G7 FSOI Action Coordinator, is working to identify ways and means to strengthen the synergies between the ocean observing communities and the WOA. This includes using the WOA to identify knowledge and observing system gaps, and mobilising the observing and research communities to fill them. The G7 FSOI is also working with the UN Regular Process, the IOC-UNESCO, the Copernicus Marine Service, and other global partners to explore the needs for and existing elements of an indicator framework. Such a framework would provide the much-needed science-based tools for understanding global ocean changes and interactions with the Earth system.
For more information, visit the G7 FSOI web page dedicated to this scoping activity.
