Friday 7 June 2024 10:30AM - 1:30PM EDT
Join us on 7 June 2024 for a hybrid celebration of UN World Oceans Day, hosted in-person at the UN Headquarters in New York and broadcast live.
* While the official UN designation for World Oceans Day is still 8 June, the 2024 event will be celebrated on Friday 7 June.
UN WOD 2024 Theme:
The ocean sustains humanity and all life on earth. Nonetheless, despite our utter reliance on it, we have only ever explored ~10%. While we know little of the ocean compared to its immense vastness, what we do know is that the consequences of our actions are evident throughout its waters. The knowledge on the ocean’s dire state is clear. Still, each year humanity continues to make shallow and short-sighted decisions that further the likelihood of the ocean’s, as well as our own, demise.
We don’t have time for “out of sight, out of mind.” Our relationship to the ocean needs to urgently change, and our efforts have only skimmed the surface to date. To motivate widespread momentum for the ocean, we need to awaken new depths.
2024 Program
UN WOD 2024 will take us on a journey of discovery through the ocean's vastness, tapping into the wisdom and expertise of global policy-makers, scientists, managers, thought leaders, and artists to awaken new depths of understanding, compassion, collaboration and commitment for the ocean and all it sustains. The program will expand our perspectives and appreciation for our blue planet, build new foundations for our relationship to the ocean, and ignite a wave of action toward necessary change.
Featured Speakers
-
H.E António Guterres
Secretary-General of the
United Nations -
Naoko Ishii
Professor at The University of Tokyo | Director, Center for Global Commons | Former CEO and Chairperson, Global Environment Facility -
Johan Rockström
Director of the Potsdam
Institute for Climate Impact
Research -
Eman Mounir
Climate Journalist -
Karen Sack
Executive Director,
Ocean Risk and
Resilience Action Alliance -
Rayne Sullivan
Founder, SEASTORIA -
Miguel de Serpa Soares
Under-Secretary-General
for Legal Affairs and United
Nations Legal Counsel -
Meadow Walker
Founder & President, the Paul Walker Foundation -
Brett Jenks
CEO, Rare -
Dave Erasmus
Chair, Aqoustics -
Barkha Mossaë
Regenerative Blue Economy
Manager, IUCN -
Sylvia Earle
Explorer at Large,
National Geographic &
Mission Blue
Schedule
Depths of Commitment:
Opening Remarks & Performance