Tackling degraded oceans could mitigate climate crisis - report

Greenpeace says efforts to restore seas' ecosystems would boost their capacity to absorb heat and store carbon

Halting overfishing and the plastic pollution of the oceans could help tackle the climate emergency by improving the degraded state of the world's biggest carbon sink, a report has found.

The oceans absorb both the excess heat generated by our greenhouse gas emissions, and absorb carbon dioxide itself, helping to reduce the impacts of climate chaos. But we are rapidly reaching the limits of the oceans' absorptive capacity as our pillage of marine life is disrupting vital ecosystems and the natural carbon cycle.