Each September, world leaders gather at UN Headquarters for the General Assembly’s High-Level Week, this year under the theme “Restoring trust, managing transformation: A United Nations that delivers for all.” For the IOC, the UN’s lead body for ocean science, three moments stand out.
The SDG Moment
Ahead of the General Debate, leaders gather on September 18 for the annual SDG Moment, taking stock of progress towards the 2030 Agenda, with progress on half of all SDG targets currently described as weak and insufficient.
For the IOC, this is a chance to spotlight SDG 14: Life Below Water. The Commission is the custodian agency for two of its indicators: 14.3.1, tracking ocean acidification, and 14.a.1, monitoring national investment in ocean science through the Global Ocean Science Report. Science and data remain fundamental to protecting the ocean and meeting the 2030 Agenda, and IOC’s custodianship of these indicators shows how ocean observation translates directly into global accountability.
The OceanEye International Alliance for GOOS
On September 24, in the margins of High-Level Week, governments will gather to launch the OceanEye International Alliance for GOOS, mobilizing renewed political and financial support for the infrastructure that lets the world understand its ocean.
Ocean observation underpins national security, global trade, early warning, disaster response, and marine protection for every nation, coastal or landlocked. GOOS, co-sponsored by the IOC, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), UN Environment Programme, and the International Science Council, already delivers some 120,000 near-real-time daily ocean observations from 64 countries, feeding directly into climate models and forecasting services. But the system is under strain from chronic underfunding.
In response, the European Union launched the International Alliance for GOOS as part of its OceanEye initiative, co-chaired by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. The Alliance brings countries together to secure sustained investment and open ocean data, with governments invited to pledge concrete support at the launch.
The High-Level Meeting on Sea Level Rise
On September 24, world leaders will also turn to one of the most visible impacts of a warming planet at the High-Level Meeting on Sea Level Rise, convened to build political leadership and international cooperation on what it frames as an existential threat for coastal communities and Small Island Developing States.
The meeting is expected to adopt, by consensus, the UN Declaration on Sea Level Rise. The Declaration puts knowledge, data, and science first, stating that action “must be based on the best available science and knowledge,” and names the Global Sea Level Observing System (GLOSS), coordinated by the IOC since 1985, as central to that effort. GLOSS combines a worldwide tide-gauge and GNSS network with satellite altimetry to provide the most reliable long-term record of sea level change.
Sea level rise has accelerated from about 1.5 mm per year for most of the 20th century to roughly 3.4 mm per year today, putting an estimated one billion people living below 10 meters of elevation increasingly at risk. Yet the IOC’s newly issued GLOSS Implementation Plan 2026 shows the observing network under strain, with only 210 of 294 core stations currently active, a “key concern” the plan aims to address by restoring the network and expanding real-time monitoring.
Together, these three moments make the case that understanding a changing ocean starts with the science and data to measure it—not a footnote at UNGA81, but its foundation.
