- Paris Climate Talks
Oceans May Be Left Out of Climate Plan, But Here’s What’s at Stake
Troubles in the Mediterranean and potential fixes in the Seychelles show why the world’s seas need more attention during the climate negotiations.
MARSEILLE, France Out Thierry Perez's office window, past the crumbling 16th century island prison where Alexandre Dumas set the "Count of Monte Cristo," roils a Mediterranean Sea that didn't exist just a few decades ago.
Major disease outbreaks worsened by warming waters now strike sea life five times more than when Perez, a marine ecologist with the French government, began studying the Mediterranean in the 1990s. Water temperatures have risen two to three times faster than across the world’s oceans at large. Half of the Mediterranean's fish are pushing north, with wrasses and barracuda once native to North Africa now common off southern France.
Yet just four hours away by train, international climate negotiators in Paris have been reluctant to even mention oceans in their formal
