The Coral Reef Breakthrough: The 2024 Ocean Decade Conference

Coral reefs exist in more than 100 countries and territories, and support at least 25% of marine species; they are integral to sustaining Earth’s vast and interconnected web of marine biodiversity and provide ecosystem services valued up to $9.9 trillion annually. More than one billion people, including vulnerable coastal communities, whose daily lives are inextricably linked with life below water, depend on healthy coral reefs. They are essential to the security, resilience, and climate adaptation of many of the most climate-vulnerable nations on Earth, yet the functional existence of these critical ecosystems is at stake due to the climate crisis and other anthropogenic stressors.

The window for protecting these ecosystems is closing rapidly.Recognising the lack of coral reef-specific global targets in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), the International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI), in collaboration with the Global Fund for Coral Reefs (GFCR), and the UN High-Level Climate Champions convened a working group of 30 experts to develop global 2030 targets to align the coral reef community and urge public and private actors to act for the future of coral reefs. These targets have been presented as part of “The Coral Reef Breakthrough” along with four action points.

The Coral Reef Breakthrough aims to secure the future of at least 125,000 km² of shallow-water tropical coral reefs with investments of at least US$12 billion to support the resilience of more than half a billion people globally by 2030. Achieving the Coral Reef Breakthrough means preventing the functional extinction of one of the world’s most threatened, yet most valuable, and most biodiverse, ecosystems.This side event, is hosted by ICRI, in collaboration with the Global Fund for Coral Reefs, the Coral Research & Development Accelerator Platform (CORDAP) and the International Coral Reef Society (ICRS).

The panel will discuss the targets of the Coral Reef Breakthrough and why it is instrumental in achieving the following:

1. UN Ocean Decade Vision, the science we need for the ocean we want, with a focus on Challenge 2, Protect and restore ecosystems and biodiversity
2. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG14, Life Below Water
3. How the Breakthrough can bring together the coral reef community and be used as a tool to help deliver the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.