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00:00 It covers around 71% of our Earth's surface.
00:04 Thursday marks the UN-designated World Oceans Day to raise global awareness of how to interact
00:10 with it sustainably.
00:12 This year's theme is "tides are changing" and comes a week after global efforts to develop
00:17 the first international treaty on plastic pollution on land and sea.
00:22 According to marine experts, climate change remains a critical threat.
00:26 Over the past 100 years, average global sea surface temperatures have risen per decade,
00:32 warming the ocean with consequences such as ice melting, sea level rise and impacting
00:37 marine biodiversity.
00:38 "There are two really big things we can do to help and one is to reduce global emissions.
00:44 We need to do that immediately and also to set up large-scale protected areas."
00:49 Another major cause for concern is plastic.
00:53 According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, at least 14 million
00:57 tonnes of plastic are deposited in the ocean every year, making up 80% of all marine debris
01:03 from the surface waters to the deepest sea sediments.
01:06 "In one teacup size of sediment in the Southern Ocean, we're finding at least 20 microplastics.
01:14 So if you try and extrapolate that across the globe and across our oceans, we're not
01:19 looking at billions, we're looking at billions of billions.
01:22 So this is a really stark message to us, especially because we can't really pick that up.
01:27 But what we can do is ensure that we only throw away plastic that we need to throw away."
01:34 According to the UN, delegates at last week's talks in Paris agreed to produce a first draft
01:40 on the plastics treaty before the next meeting in Nairobi in November.