Ocean and Climate Change Dialogue 2026

The Ocean is our planet’s greatest shock absorber for human-caused climate change—trapping about 30% of carbon emissions since the industrial revolution and absorbing roughly 90 percent of the heat generated by our greenhouse gas emissions. But its ability to insulate Earth from the impacts of climate change has limits.

As excessive heat warms the Ocean and our changing atmosphere alters seawater chemistry, impacts such as sea-level rise, marine heatwaves, and Ocean acidification are increasingly harming marine biodiversity and the wellbeing of people who live near the Ocean or depend on it for survival.

At UNFCCC COP 27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Parties established the facilitated Ocean and Climate Change Dialogue as a dedicated space under the UNFCCC process to advance Ocean-based climate action touching on adaptation, mitigation, means of implementation, and science. The Dialogue shares good practices and informal summary reports to keep a spotlight on Ocean issues.

At the June 2026 session of the Bonn Climate Change Conference, the Ocean and Climate Change Dialogue will convene for two days.  In consultation with Parties and the build momentum from past sessions, co-facilitators Sivendra Michael (Fiji) and Ulrik Lenaerts (Belgium) announced the three topics of the dialogue will be:

Ocean-based priorities in the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), including restoring and protecting marine ecosystems, sustainable food production, ocean-based renewables and transitioning away from fossil fuels, sustainable tourism, coastal resilience, tackling emissions from marine transport.

Means of Implementation, including identifying practical pathways to unlock and scale predictable, accessible, and adequate ocean-related climate finance, recognizing that a significant proportion of Parties (particularly developing countries and SIDS) have framed their Ocean-related actions as conditional on external support in their NDCs.

Ocean-climate-biodiversity synergies and international cooperation, including examining practical approaches for improving policy coherence across the UNFCCC and CBD processes and identifying concrete areas for alignment across NDCs, National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs).

The first day will start with a COP31 Presidency segment on the Ocean, followed by panels sessions with Parties and experts sharing their national experiences and relevant initiatives on the three Dialogue topics. The second day will focus on defining outcomes from the Dialogue for COP31, with world café style breakout discussions to capture good national and regional practices. After the breakout discussions, the Dialogue will reconvene in a plenary session to finalize and link key messages.