Delegations from more than 80 countries gathered in Mombasa this week for a summit that ended with an unambiguous message: ocean conservation can no longer be treated as optional in the global response to climate change. Officials signed a joint declaration urging governments to integrate ocean health into their next round of national climate commitments, due in 2025.
The Declaration and Its Scope
The document, signed on Thursday in the Kenyan coastal city, calls for measurable targets on marine protection to appear in every updated National Determined Contribution submitted under the Paris Agreement. It does not set binding quotas, but it establishes ocean action as a required component of climate planning rather than a voluntary add-on. Summit organisers said previous agreements treated oceans as peripheral. That approach, the declaration argues, is no longer compatible with scientific evidence on how warming seas affect weather patterns and coastal communities.
Africa's Coastal Communities at the Centre
The location was deliberate. Africa has roughly 30,000 kilometres of coastline, and millions of people in coastal cities like Lagos, Dakar, and Dar es Salaam depend on fisheries and marine trade for their livelihoods. Rising sea temperatures and increasingly violent storms have strained those communities in recent years, a pattern scientists attending the summit described as accelerating.
Representatives from island nations in the Indian Ocean and West Africa spoke of villages lost to erosion and fishing stocks that have shifted hundreds of kilometres from traditional grounds. Those accounts shaped the tone of negotiations, several delegates told reporters on the sidelines of the main sessions.
Economic Stakes for African Nations
The ocean economy along Africa's coastline is estimated to contribute hundreds of billions of dollars annually to regional GDP, though reliable disaggregated figures vary between organisations. The fisheries sector alone supports food security for tens of millions of people. Degraded marine environments, summit participants argued, represent a direct economic risk that climate policy has historically failed to account for.
The African Union sent a delegation that pushed for a dedicated financing mechanism to help coastal nations monitor and protect their exclusive economic zones. That proposal was not fully adopted, but the summit's final text includes a request for the Green Climate Fund to examine how existing resources could be redirected toward ocean-based adaptation projects in developing nations.
What the Science Says
Delegates referenced recent findings from oceanographic research institutions showing that seas have absorbed roughly a quarter of all human-generated carbon dioxide emitted since the industrial revolution. That absorption has slowed atmospheric warming, but it has also increased ocean acidification, which threatens coral reefs and the species that depend on them. A 2023 report cited during the summit noted that warming in parts of the Indian Ocean has exceeded global average temperatures by measurable margins in some years.
The Nairobi-based Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission played a convening role in the lead-up to the summit, helping to coordinate scientific input from research institutions across six continents.
Divisions Over Enforcement
Not all participants left satisfied. Several smaller island states pressed for language that would have committed signatories to specific timelines for expanding marine protected areas. That language was softened in the final text after opposition from countries with large commercial fishing industries. The compromise irked environmental groups present in Mombasa, though they acknowledged the declaration still marks a shift from previous practice.
The United Nations Environment Programme, which co-hosted the summit alongside the Kenyan government, said the declaration creates political momentum that can be built upon. Officials there noted that the 2025 climate commitment cycle gives governments a natural deadline to incorporate ocean targets.
What Comes Next
The real test, observers said, will come when national governments file their updated climate plans. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change secretariat will review submissions for the presence of ocean-related indicators. If major emitters continue to exclude marine dimensions from their commitments, the Mombasa declaration risks becoming a statement without follow-through.
Kenya's Ministry of Environment has indicated it will present its own updated national plan by the middle of next year, incorporating coastal resilience measures that were discussed during the summit. The African Union has scheduled a follow-up technical meeting in Addis Ababa for early next year to help member states develop compatible methodologies for reporting ocean-based climate action.
Financing Remains the Bottleneck
Money continued to dominate conversations outside the formal sessions. Developing nations repeated their call for wealthy countries to provide predictable, grant-based funding for ocean conservation, rather than loans that add to debt burdens. The current architecture of climate finance falls short of what coastal countries say they need to protect infrastructure, restore mangroves, and transition fishing communities away from over-exploited stocks.
The summit did not produce new financial pledges. Instead, participants agreed to a roadmap for a dedicated ocean finance dialogue to take place alongside the next COP climate conference.
What to watch: whether major economies including the United States, China, and the European Union reference the Mombasa declaration when they release their updated national climate commitments in the coming months. Their language will signal whether the summit created genuine political shift or merely registered a consensus that remains to be acted upon.
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If major emitters continue to exclude marine dimensions from their commitments, the Mombasa declaration risks becoming a statement without follow-through.Kenya's Ministry of Environment has indicated it will present its own updated national plan by the middle of next year, incorporating coastal resilience measures that were discussed during the summit. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change secretariat will review submissions for the presence of ocean-related indicators.
