By Federico Riet Sapriza
In April 2026, Super Typhoon Sinlaku battered the western Pacific, killing at least nine people in the Federated States of Micronesia and affecting around 34,000 others across Chuuk and Yap states. The natural disaster exposed the vulnerability of island communities to powerful storms, particularly where homes and infrastructure are concentrated along exposed coastlines.
Such natural disasters amplified by climate change reinforce the long-standing calls by small island developing states (SIDS) to place the ocean at the centre of climate negotiations. Ahead of COP31, that call is gaining momentum, with growing attention to the role of oceans in climate action. In June, more than 150 scientists, policymakers and public figures wrote to the Turkish and Australian presidencies, urging them to make COP31 a ‘Blue COP’ by placing ocean action at the heart of climate negotiations and backing it with finance. At the Pre-COP in Fiji in October 2026, 105 countries in the Friends of the Ocean and Climate coalition called for ocean-based solutions to be integrated across the climate talks.
Türkiye has made oceans and seas one of the ten priorities of its Action Agenda for Antalya. At an Oceans and Seas Summit in Trabzon in September, the presidency pointed to marine protected areas, marine spatial planning, ocean monitoring and blue finance as areas for action, launched a Marine Litter Action Platform to link ocean projects with technical support and funding, and committed to work on Blue NDCs, national climate plans that include ocean measures.
Island governments will judge all of this by a simple measure, which is how much of the funding and support reaches the reefs, mangroves and sea defences that stand between their people and the next storm. The challenge: however, is not simply securing recognition for the ocean, but making its protection a fundable priority.
What the ocean does for all of us
The oceans play a fundamental role in our daily life and in driving the global climate system and providing fundamental ecosystem services (supporting, regulating, provisioning, and cultural ), though this is frequently overlooked. Phytoplankton, the microscopic algae drifting near the surface, produce around half of the oxygen in the atmosphere (supporting ecosystem services). Since the 1970s, the ocean has soaked up more than 90 per cent of the extra heat trapped by greenhouse gases, and each year it absorbs roughly a quarter of the carbon dioxide we emit (regulating ecosystem services). Much of the warming the world has been spared on land has gone into the water instead, and it is now coming back as marine heatwaves, rising seas and bleached reefs due to acidification and increases sea surface water temperature .
More than 3 billion people depend on marine and coastal life for food, income or both (provisioning ecosystem services). About 680 million live in low-lying coastal zones, and by 2050 that number is expected to pass 1 billion, according to the Global Centre for Adaptation. People depend on the ocean just as directly. More than 3 billion people rely on marine and coastal biodiversity for food, work and income. Around 680 million live in low-lying coastal zones, a number expected to pass 1 billion by 2050. Their homes, harbours, farms and water supplies all depend on coastlines that are now eroding, flooding and warming.
An ocean of livelihoods, culture and belonging
In small island states, the ocean and the economy are hard to separate. Kiribati located in the central Pacific Ocean, home to around 138,000 people on 33 atolls and islands, has roughly 800 square kilometres of land and an exclusive economic zone of about 3.5 million square kilometres. In rural Pacific communities, fish provide between half and 90 per cent of dietary animal protein, according to research on aquatic foods and nutrition in the Pacific. Fishing access fees paid by foreign fleets also provide a vital source of government revenue in several island states, accounting for an average of 37 per cent of government revenue, excluding grants, across ten tuna-dependent Pacific island countries between 2015 and 2018, according to a study published in Nature Sustainability (Bell et al., 2021).
Tourism is vital to many SIDS, supporting national economies and livelihoods. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), tourism accounts for almost 30 per cent of GDP across SIDS on average, exceeding 50 per cent in some countries. Much of this tourism depends on healthy beaches, coral reefs and coastal ecosystems, and infrastructure making their degradation an economic concern as well as an environmental one.
Island communities live by the ocean in every sense, with their cultural identity, ancestral connections, traditional knowledge and customary practices deeply intertwined with it. Across the Pacific, the ocean carries spiritual significance, connects communities to their ancestors and preserves stories, navigation skills and knowledge passed down through generations. Homes, schools, clinics, airports and the roads between them often follow the coast, because there is little flat land elsewhere. As storms intensify and sea levels rise, moving inland is often difficult, and on the lowest atolls, there may be no inland to move to. Fiji has already relocated several villages to higher ground and identified dozens more that may have to follow.
Healthy reefs and mangroves take the first blow. A reef in good condition can strip most of the energy from a wave before it reaches the beach. When those natural barriers are degraded, the same storm pushes further inland and does far more damage.
In the lowest-lying states, the loss of reefs and mangroves threatens more than the economy. Each metre of eroded coast is national territory, and a country whose land is shrinking faces hard questions about its maritime boundaries and even its statehood. Pacific Islands Forum leaders, in 2021 and 2023, adopted declarations affirming that their countries’ statehood and maritime zones would be preserved despite sea-level rise. Their position was reiterated at the United Nations on 12 October 2026, when Forum members welcomed the adoption of the UN Declaration on Sea Level Rise.
Mangroves, the forests that guard the shore
Mangroves grow where few trees can, in the salty tidal mud of tropical coastlines and cover roughly 147,000 square kilometres worldwide, an area a little over half the size of the United Kingdom. Per hectare, they can hold up to four times as much carbon as tropical rainforest, and by some estimates they take it up two to four times faster.
Between 50 and 90 per cent of that carbon is buried in waterlogged soil, where it decays very slowly. Left alone, that carbon can stay put for centuries. Once a mangrove is cleared for shrimp ponds or hotels, the soil dries out and releases what it has stored.
Mangroves also reduce coastal flood risk. A 100-metre-wide mangrove belt can reduce wave energy by up to two thirds. A 2020 study published in Scientific Reports estimated that mangroves provide more than USD 65 billion a year in flood-protection benefits and protect more than 15 million people from flooding annually. Fishers see another benefit in the tangle of roots. They provide vital nursery grounds for reef fish, crabs and shrimp, sheltering them from predators and strong waves, giving them time to grow before moving into open waters and nearby reefs. These habitats help sustain marine populations and the fisheries that coastal communities depend on for food and income.
Why so little money reaches the coast
Life below water, the subject of Sustainable Development Goal 14, receives less than 1 per cent of the official development assistance tracked against the goals, according to the World Resources Institute. That makes it the least funded of all 17. The same analysis found that ocean work attracts less than 1 per cent of philanthropic funding.
Coastal protection is hard to finance because it rarely earns money. A government that replants a mangrove belt or restores a reef avoids future losses, yet it has no revenue to repay a loan. Forests on land have had more than a decade of REDD+ payments and, since COP30, Brazil’s Tropical Forest Forever Facility, which pays countries to keep forests standing even though it is still well short of its funding goal. Coastal wetlands have nothing comparable at scale, and seagrass meadows and salt marshes are rarely counted in national forest schemes at all.
How do we turn coasts into investments
Blue finance, one of the areas the presidency has put on its agenda, has started to fill part of that gap, although island governments know the limits of each tool well.
Insurance is the most established. Since 2007, the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility has paid out to member governments within weeks of a hurricane or earthquake, using the measured strength of the event to trigger payment instead of a long damage survey. In Mexico, a parametric policy covering part of the Mesoamerican Reef paid for emergency repairs after Hurricane Delta in 2020, the first time a reef had been insured this way. In 2023, a similar policy designed by AXA Climate began covering the mangroves of San Crisanto, a Mayan fishing community on the Yucatán Peninsula, paying up to USD 100,000 after a hurricane to restore the forest and the fishing and tourism facilities around it. The difficulty is cost. Premiums fall due every year, and governments under fiscal pressure often buy less cover than they need.
Debt-for-nature swaps have grown quickly. Belize used one in 2021 to buy back a large share of its foreign debt at a discount in exchange for protecting 30 per cent of its ocean, and Ecuador and the Bahamas have since arranged debt-for-nature deals of their own. Barbados went further in 2024 with a debt-for-climate swap that freed money for water and sanitation works able to withstand drought and storms. Each took years to negotiate and needed teams of lawyers and bankers, which puts them out of reach for the smallest states unless someone helps them prepare.
Blue carbon credits could pay communities to protect mangroves and seagrass, but buyers have grown cautious after a series of scandals in the wider carbon market. Biodiversity credits, which are still at an early stage, could reward the protection of reefs and seagrass that store less carbon yet support fisheries and tourism. Either kind of credit will only earn a fair price if the ecosystem is measured carefully, the land and sea rights are clear and local people share in the income.
All three depend on work done long before a deal is signed. Someone has to map the reef, measure the soil carbon, settle who owns the shoreline and design a project that a funder will recognise. That is why the presidency’s interest in ocean observation and capacity-building deserves more attention than it usually gets. An island state cannot insure a reef it has never surveyed or sell credits from a mangrove it has never measured. The first post in this series described the period when a climate project has no owner and no budget as the orphan stage, and many coastal projects never get past it.
What Antalya can deliver
Two weeks in Antalya will not realistically close the ocean-finance gap. COP31 can: however, help countries move from broad commitments to projects that are ready for funding. This would mean encouraging coastal investment plans within Blue NDCs, directing public and concessional finance towards the studies and institutional capacity needed to prepare projects, and prioritising grant funding for ecosystems whose public benefits cannot generate sufficient revenue to repay commercial loans.
Coastal ecosystems also need a stronger place in national climate plans and funding frameworks. Mangroves, seagrass meadows and salt marshes should be assessed and financed according to their contributions to carbon storage, biodiversity, fisheries and coastal resilience. Their benefits do not always fit neatly into existing funding categories, but that should not leave them outside climate investment plans.
Governments also need support to identify priority sites, establish reliable environmental baselines, clarify rights and responsibilities, assess climate risks and develop credible project proposals. Public funding for this early work can help unlock larger investments later, although not every project will be suitable for commercial finance.
The presidency has a clear opening to embed these practical requirements into the core Blue COP agenda. Island states have spent years calling for greater attention to the ocean. The next line of action is to help them protect it at a scale that matches the risks they face.
Preparing coastal projects that funders will back
E Co. has spent years helping island and coastal states turn ocean priorities into projects that funders approve. In Latin America and the Caribbean, we developed a USD 12.1 million grant funding proposal for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), approved by the Adaptation Fund, to enhance the climate resilience of coastal communities in Limón, Costa Rica, and Bocas del Toro, Panama, through nature-based solutions for local livelihoods. We also prepared a GCF funding proposal for integrated coastal management in Dominica, designed to move the island’s coastal protection away from sea walls and towards healthy ecosystems.
In the Pacific, we developed two GCF-approved projects with the Pacific Community in the Federated States of Micronesia, one helping local authorities adapt to climate change and another protecting communities from the health risks of a warming climate. We also helped the Micronesia Conservation Trust prepare an ecosystem-based adaptation programme for Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands, which the GCF approved in 2023. Elsewhere in the Western Indian Ocean, we developed the GCF concept note for the Great Blue Wall Initiative, and closer to Antalya, we supported the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in preparing its part of Integrated Collaborative Approaches for Sustainable Tourism (iCOAST), a global GEF programme on sustainable tourism, covering Egypt, Morocco and Türkiye.
COP31 has made oceans one of its priorities, but a place on the agenda does not rebuild homes in Chuuk or replant a mangrove in Belize. That impact depends on money that small island states still struggle to reach, and on projects prepared well enough for a funder to approve. Antalya will be worth something to island governments if they leave it with a clearer route to that money than they had before. The presidency has set its priorities and the talks will decide how much of that intent turns into finance.
