- SDG 14 is ‘Life Below Water :Plastic pollution. Increasing levels of debris in the world’s oceans are having a major environmental and economic impact. Marine debris impacts biodiversity through entanglement or ingestion
- SDG 14 is ‘Life Below Water :Coastal waters are deteriorating due to pollution and eutrophication. Without concerted efforts, coastal eutrophication is expected to increase in 20 percent of large marine ecosystems by 2050.
- SDG 14 is Life Below Water :Ocean acidification has increased significantly in recent decades. Open Ocean sites show current levels of acidity have increased by 26 per cent since the start of the Industrial Revolution.
- SDG 14 is Life Below Water :Oceans absorb about 30 per cent of carbon dioxide produced by humans, buffering the impacts of global warming.
- SDG 14 is Life Below Water :Oceans provide key natural resources including food, medicines, biofuels and other products. They help with the breakdown and removal of waste and pollution, and their coastal ecosystems act as buf
Un Chief Urges Water Action
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United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has stressed the importance of water management, echoing a global water crisis report presented to him by a high-level panel.
"Two billion people in the world have no access to safe water and 4.5 billion to proper sanitation, which means that we are facing an enormous challenge," Xinhua quoted Guterres as saying on Wednesday.
"I will ask the whole of the UN system and also all member states to take it very seriously and to make sure that your proposals and your recommendations are effectively implemented," Guterres told members of the panel, which included 11 leaders of state and a special advisor.
"Climate change is running faster than we are and the implications of that from the point of view of the water systems is huge.
"If one looks at natural disasters, the natural disasters that have water included in them are multiplying and becoming more and more dangerous everywhere, which means water is indeed a matter of life and death and it must be a natural priority in everything we do," he said.
More than a third of the world's population are affected by water scarcity, said the report "Making Every Drop Count: An Agenda for Water Action".
It called for a fundamental shift in the way the world manages water so that the Sustainable Development Goals for the period 2015-30 can be achieved.
Madakasira Rajesh