Pollution affects every part of the planet: air, soil, and freshwater, marine and coastal environments.
It contributes significantly to climate change, biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation. Its impacts often derive from the combined effects of several pollutants.
Pollution takes many forms, visible and invisible. Among other sources, it may result from energy production and consumption. Pollution due to human activities is found everywhere in the oceans – at the surface, in the ocean depths and in marine organisms.
Rivers carry solid and liquid waste generated by land-based activities, and other potentially harmful substances, from source to sea. Yet, healthy oceans are essential to the health and well-being of everyone.
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic introduced new and evolving challenges related to waste and pollution.
While it is too early to understand all the lessons of the pandemic, it has presented an opportunity to address the causes of pollution.
Sea-based pollution, including discharges and spills from vessels and the presence of abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded fishing gear, continues to be of concern. Plastics and microplastics1Â from numerous sources, untreated wastewater and nutrient run-off still pollute the oceans.
The consequences of anthropogenic activities, combined with a lack of global governance, adequate financing, capacity, oversight and accountability, have increased the adverse impact of human activities on living and non-living ocean resources to an unprecedented level.
Although considerable progress has been made in limiting some forms of marine pollution, others such as wastewater pollution, nutrient run-off and eutrophication persist.
Reflecting widespread global concerns, marine pollution has moved to the forefront of the international environmental agenda in recent years. A number of global actions have resulted.
During the fifth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly, several resolutions addressing pollution were adopted. In its resolution 5/14, the Assembly calls for the establishment of an intergovernmental negotiating committee to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment.
With its resolution 5/2, on sustainable nitrogen management, the Assembly intends to accelerate actions to significantly reduce nitrogen waste from all sources, including agricultural practices. Furthermore, the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development addresses marine pollution as one of its key challenges.2
This global momentum shows that there is an international commitment to combat pollution, including marine pollution.
It also indicates the urgency of the pollution crisis, which cuts across several sectors and is strongly interconnected with the other two planetary crises – climate change and biodiversity loss.
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