Global leaders urged to scale up support for the Great Blue Wall initiative.

Global leaders attending the conference on climate change taking place in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, have expressed enthusiasm and pledged to accelerating action on the Great Blue Wall initiative.

The "Great Blue Wall" (GBW) initiative is an Africa-led effort toward a nature-positive world that enhances the planet's and societies' resilience to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030.

It aims to create interconnected, protected, and conserved marine areas to counter the effects of climate change and global warming in the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region.

It also aims at unlocking the blue economy's potential to become a driver of nature conservation and sustainable development outcomes.

'All of us here are advocates, promoters, and leaders in the blue space. We have to take on this challenge, and we cannot do it alone; it has got to be a collective effort,' said President Wavel Ramkalawan of Seychelles.

The President underscored the need for all to 'stop talking about the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, and the Atlantic Ocean,' and instead 'talk about the one ocean we must protect."

He was speaking at an event co-hosted by the UNECA, the government of Seychelles, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and the UN High-Level Climate Champions.

Other high-level speakers included Amb. Peter Thomson, UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy for the Oceans; Nigel Topping; UNFCCC High-Level Climate Champion, Borge Brende, President, World Economic Forum and representatives from the United Nations General Assembly, and officials from the governments of Kenya and Mozambique.

In her opening remarks, IUCN President, Razan al Mubarak, said the Great Blue Wall initiative had "garnered support from both inside and outside of Africa, and had raised the profile of the plight of our oceans and returned energy and faith in international collaboration and cooperation."

Mahmoud Mohieldin - the UNFCCC High-Level Climate Champion - emphasized the importance of ocean conservation, noting, "oceans are our biggest ally in the fight of climate action, but, unfortunately, we are compromising this solution by not protecting it.'

'Oceans...