SBU, New York Climate Exchange Make Waves at UN Ocean Conference
Two Stony Brook University scholars called for greater international collaboration to protect endangered coral reefs at the third United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3) in Nice, France.
John Bohorquez, research associate in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS), was among a delegation from The New York Climate Exchange (The Exchange), which “put its collaborative model into action for the first time for our oceans,” said Exchange CEO Stephen Hammer, who led the expedition.
“We’re having a conversation about bridging science, policy, and action through collaborative partnerships — exactly what The Exchange was designed to promote,” Hammer said. “Through our participation in the UN Ocean Rise and Coastal Resilience Coalition, we have had the opportunity to bring our partners together with mayors, governors, and frontline communities to drive tangible adaptation efforts. Our goal is to create a space where science and community priorities align to catalyze real solutions for coastal resilience.”
At the forefront of this effort was Stony Brook University — the anchor institution for The Exchange — which demonstrated its deep commitment to addressing complex challenges related to marine ecosystems, Bohorquez said. His participation, alongside Karine Kleinhaus, SoMAS adjunct professor and co-organizer for the UNOC session, underscored the critical role of interdisciplinary, science-based approaches in tackling the intricate issues facing the planet’s oceans.
“This opportunity drew much needed attention on the importance of multinational efforts to support coral reef conservation and resilience during this critical time for both the environment and global politics,” Bohorquez said.
“Although many of the world’s reefs are dying, there are a few precious refugia where corals are particularly resilient to the stress of warming oceans,” Kleinhaus said. “These require robust conservation efforts, which must be achieved regardless of political or policy challenges.”
Bohorquez led a kickoff event on June 9 to showcase research at Stony Brook on coral reef resilience and conservation alongside Hammer and Kleinhaus. The talk focused on using regional approaches to protect reefs from threats that undermine resilience, such as harmful fishing, coastal development and pollution, as a blueprint for international collaboration around ocean issues.
The session, hosted by the International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI), brought together experts from crucial regions like the Coral Triangle, the Caribbean and the Red Sea. A striking example presented was the remarkable resilience of coral reefs in the Gulf of Aqaba, at the northern end of the Red Sea, which largely resisted and has since fully recovered from the effects of the 2023-2024 global mass bleaching event that impacted 84 percent of coral reefs around the world. Bleaching is a reaction to stress factors like rising ocean temperatures, and the Gulf of Aqaba experienced levels of heat exposure that would have wiped out reefs elsewhere, but instead, they were barely affected.
“Coral reefs have the best chance for surviving climate change impacts when they are otherwise healthy,” Bohorquez said. “Climate change remains the greatest threat to coral reef health, but countries also need to work together to address these other threats that have helped wipe out half the coral reefs on Earth since 1950.”
“Transboundary collaboration and financed conservation efforts to address local threats can make the difference for these reefs to survive into the next century,” Kleinhaus added.
Some coral reef ecosystems reach across distances that span international boundaries, and are also connected to other seemingly distant ecosystems, such as other coral reefs hundreds of miles away, other marine ecosystems, including seagrass beds and mangroves, and to terrestrial ecosystems. Sustainable land-use management and watershed health are also key factors of coral reef health. This interconnectedness necessitates that local conservation efforts are strongly supported by coordinated regional actions, they argue.
To that end, Bohorquez, a global expert in marine conservation finance, also advocated for financial solutions for ocean conservation. Ocean conservation is often limited due to insufficient or inadequate funding, and “Life Below Water” remains the most underfunded United Nations Sustainable Development Goal, with less than $10 billion invested between 2015 and 2019 — far short of the estimated $175 billion needed annually, the international body said in a statement.
Among many notable outcomes from UNOC3, the co-design process for One Ocean Finance was formally launched. Bohorquez has been supporting this initiative for the last year, which presents, “a bold new effort to unlock billions in new financing from ocean-dependent industries and blue economy sectors,” according to the UN Sustainable Development Group.
“We need partnerships between science communities and from the financial sector in all phases of ocean finance,” Bohoroquez said. “We need them to help raise the necessary funds, to guide them so they are used most impactfully and to make sure that the investments in the ocean are having their intended results in delivering the sustainable ocean future that we aspire to.”