Held on the road to COP31, the Seas and Oceans Summit convened in Trabzon on 10 September 2026. The summit hosted a high-level ministerial session titled “Oceans, Climate and the Blue Economy”, attended by representatives of Australia, the UNFCCC Secretariat and Turkish institutions.
“The future of our oceans — which provide a livelihood for more than 3 billion people and produce half of the air we breathe — is at enormous risk.”
— Murat Kurum, COP31 President and Minister of Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change
Key figures from the summit
~15%Improvement in Mediterranean and Black Sea fish stocks
17 bays · 856 boatsFethiye-Göcek mooring buoy system
$400 billionPossible cost of marine ecosystem degradation by 2050
17 countriesJournalists covering the summit
A mooring buoy system serving 856 boats across 17 bays has been put into operation in Fethiye-Göcek. Participants stressed that the economic cost of marine ecosystem degradation could reach USD 400 billion by 2050.
Oceans and Seas is one of the ten priority themes of the COP31 Action Agenda and will be addressed at the conference on the 17 November 2026 thematic day.
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