CALI, Colombia — The United Nations, scientists and governments made an urgent appeal Wednesday for increased funding to protect endangered coral reefs.

Research this year shows that 77% of the world’s reefs are affected by bleaching, mainly due to warming ocean waters due to human-caused climate change. It is the largest and fourth global mass bleaching on record and is impacting both hemispheres, the United Nations Capital Development Fund said.

The findings prompted a special UN emergency session – usually called to address growing conflicts or natural disasters – on corals, to be convened on the sidelines of the UN biodiversity summit, known as COP16, which is drawing to a close after two weeks in Cali, Colombia.

Coral reefs are vital ecosystems that support more than 25 percent of marine life and nearly a billion people, many of whom rely on reefs for food security, coastal protection and livelihoods, the UN development fund said.

After the emergency session, the governments of New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Germany and France made new commitments totaling about $30 million to the UN coral reef fund, set up in 2020. By 2030, the fund aims to mobilize up to 3 billion dollars in public money. and private funding to support coral reef conservation efforts. Around $225 million has been raised to date.

“Protecting our ocean and its precious habitats is fundamental to life on earth,” said UK Nature Secretary Mary Creagh. “But without urgent action, the world’s coral reefs face extinction from global warming, acidification, disease and pollution; a vital ecosystem lost in our lifetime.”

Next year, a UN ocean conference will be held in Nice, France, and countries are being urged in advance to commit more to the UN’s global coral reef fund, with the aim of mobilizing an additional donation of 150 million dollars by the conference.

“In 2024, climate change and other human impacts have triggered the fourth mass coral reef bleaching event, the most extensive and devastating on record,” said Peter Thomson, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Ocean. ecosystems are closing fast, world leaders must act now.”

“We need to secure a sustainable future for coral reefs and the countless lives that rely on them – before it’s too late,” Thomson said.

A change in water temperature can cause corals to drive out algae that provide nutrition, lose color and become stressed. Coral can bleach for other reasons, such as extremely low tides, pollution, or too much sunlight.

In the world’s largest coral reef ecosystem, Australia’s Great Barrier Reefbleaching affected 90% of coral assessed in 2022. The Florida coral reefthe third largest, underwent significant bleaching last year.

The first mass bleaching occurred in 1998, the second between 2011-2013, the third in 2016, said Kenyan marine ecologist David Obura, who heads Coastal Ocean Research and Development in the Indian Ocean East Africa.

“It’s been going on for more than a year at a time, which is worrying,” Obura told the UN’s emergency session at COP16.

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