In the opening months of President Joe Biden\u2019s administration there has been a sea change in ocean policy as the United States moves to re-engage with the international community to tackle climate change.<\/p>\n
This engagement could have significant consequences for a host of marine issues, from harmful fishing subsidies and a high seas biodiversity treaty, to efforts to create marine protected areas (MPAs) in Antarctica. To achieve progress, though, observers say the Biden administration must work with China, given the country\u2019s influence on ocean policy.<\/p>\n
\u201cChina is working on climate change, they participated in the Biden summit<\/a> on that, and so it seems like they\u2019re really interested in engaging in these multilateral forums on ocean issues,\u201d said Andrea Kavanagh, project director for the Pew Charitable Trusts\u2019 Protecting Antarctica’s Southern Ocean initiative.<\/p>\n 26%<\/p>\n The details of many Biden policies remain to be announced. But the administration has signalled its strong support of ocean issues by appointing respected scientists and environmentalists to key positions at agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which had been demoralised, defunded and politicised under the previous president<\/a>, Donald Trump.<\/p>\n Biden, for instance, has proposed a record US$6.9 billion budget for NOAA (a 26% increase on the previous year) and has nominated a former top NOAA scientist, oceanographer Rick Spinrad, to run the agency<\/a>. John Kerry, the administration\u2019s climate envoy, founded the Our Ocean conference<\/a> when he served as secretary of state in the Barack Obama administration. Marine ecologist Jane Lubchenco, who has become<\/a> the deputy director for climate and environment at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, served as NOAA\u2019s chief under Obama.<\/p>\n The Biden administration has pledged<\/a> to protect 30% of US land and waters by 2030. In May, it tried to globalise that \u201c30×30\u201d commitment when it joined a communiqu\u00e9<\/a>\u00a0issued by G7 nations calling for protection of 30% of the world\u2019s oceans, also by 2030.<\/p>\n The communiqu\u00e9 committed the nations to work toward concluding negotiations over a high seas biodiversity treaty<\/a> by the end of 2021 and supported efforts to expand a network of marine protected areas in Antarctica.<\/p>\n While the Covid-19 pandemic has significantly slowed international negotiations, 2021 could prove a pivotal year to finalise long-running talks on damaging fishing subsidies, the high seas biodiversity treaty and the creation of vast new marine protected areas in Antarctica.<\/p>\n For two decades, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has attempted to reach an agreement<\/a> by its 164 member states to ban harmful fisheries subsidies that promote overfishing and illegal, unreported and unregulated<\/a> (IUU) fishing.<\/p>\n During that time, China\u2019s overseas fishing fleet has expanded and become the world\u2019s largest, at nearly 3,000 vessels. Researchers in 2016 determined that<\/a> US$20 billion of US$35 billion in annual global fisheries subsidies were harmful. The result: one-third of fish species are being harvested at biologically unsustainable levels, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation<\/a>.<\/p>\nFisheries subsidies<\/h2>\n