A picturesque coastal neighbourhood in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, is surrounded by the Kosasthalaiyar river on two sides and the Bay of Bengal on the third. Once rich in mangroves and waterbodies that shielded it from storms and erosion, Ennore is now at the centre of a deepening ecological crisis.
A report submitted to the National Green Tribunal in 2022 reveals that the area’s wetlands and mangroves have shrunk by nearly 70 per cent — from 889 hectares in 2016 to just 278 hectares by 2022. The damage extends offshore too: The National Centre for Coastal Research documented in 2006 that the coastline north of Chennai port, including Ennore, had already lost 350 hectares to the advancing sea.
While residents say the construction of groynes (structures to check coastal erosion) has temporarily halted erosion, Supriya Sahu, additional chief secretary, Environment Climate Change and Forests, Tamil Nadu, says that the state is drawing up a plan that includes restoring mangroves to arrest more impacts. Implementing the plan, though, will require substantial funding.
Some 7,000 kilometres away in Nice, France, representatives from 175 nations gathered at the third United Nations Ocean Conference (UN-OC 3), on June 9-13 to discuss funding for UN-mandated Sustainable Development Goal 14 (SDG 14), which focuses on conserving and sustainably using oceans and marine resources by 2030. SDG 14 has 10 targets and the loss of mangroves and wetlands in Ennore directly fall under one of them.
The goal also has targets dealing with arresting marine pollution, ocean acidification, sustainable fishing and others. On the final day, delegates adopted a declaration noting that SDG 14 is the least funded SDG, urging countries to scale up finance.
No country has so far achieved SDG 14, says “Sustainable Development Report 2024”, an assessment of SDGs, and India faces major challenges in it.
“The core barriers are financial,” said Fabienne McLellan, managing director of Swiss non-profit OceanCare. Achieving SDG 14 requires an estimated $175 billion annually by 2030. Yet, according to the World Economic Forum, between 2015 and 2019, less than $10 billion was invested in it.
There is also an estimated 92 per cent — or $14.6 billion — shortfall in annual funding to meet the 30x30 target of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which involves conserving at least 30 per cent of land, inland water, marine and coastal areas by 2030, said “The Ocean Protection Gap: Assessing Progress toward the 30x30 Target”, a report released ahead of UNOC 3 by a consortium of non-profits and funders.
The funding gap exists despite the ocean being a significant wealth generator, with an estimated annual worth of $1.5 trillion, making it the world’s seventh-largest economy. It is also a crucial ally in the fight against climate change, absorbing 90 per cent of excess energy added to the Earth’s climate by human activities. Without action, the world could lose an estimated $8.4 trillion in assets and revenues, according to “Navigating Ocean Risk”, a 2021 report by global non-profit WWF and consulting company Metabolic.
The UNOC 3 event was held amid declining international aid. In 2024, the official development assistance (ODA), which is government aid that promotes and specifically targets the economic development and welfare of developing countries, fell by 7.1 per cent compared to 2023, the first drop after five years of consecutive growth, according to OECD, an inter-governmental organisation with 38 member countries.
In 2025, the US began to dismantle its aid programme and the UK announced plans to reduce aid to 0.3 per cent of gross national income, against the required ODA of 0.7 per cent to boost defence spending. “Declining ODA threatens ocean health,” said Brian O’Donnell, director of Campaign for Nature, a coalition of scientists, non-profits and governments working to secure the 30x30 goal.
With the political declaration at UNOC 3, nations announced a flurry of voluntary commitments, some of which dealt with finance. The EU pledged around $1.14 billion for restoring ocean health and supporting coastal communities. Two days prior to the conference, philanthropists, investors and public banks committed $10 billion over five years to support the blue economy.
“Voluntary financial commitments are more a collection of preexisting funds that have already been committed and at times already spent. I do not think it will be enough,” said McLellan.
O’Donnell is disappointed with UNOC3’s financial commitments for marine protected areas (MPA), regions managed for the long-term conservation, crucial to achieving the 30x30 target. “There were some big numbers put forward as voluntary commitments, but many of these are not for MPAs,” said O’Donnell. He added that countries currently do not have a plan to close the finance gap.
Lea Reitmeier, policy fellow, Grantham Research Institute, UK, agreed that the funding gap remains large, but finds a silver lining. “The forum marked growing recognition of ocean-related risks and opportunities across different stakeholder groups,” she explained, adding that 80 companies from 25 countries endorsed the “Business in Ocean” call to action, pledging to integrate ocean risks into strategy.
The conference saw the launch of a co design process for the One Ocean Finance Facility, a blended finance tool to unlock funding from ocean dependent industries. Once operational, it could draw most of its capital from ocean-dependent industries like shipping, tourism, ports and marine cables, through mechanisms such as user fees, solidarity levies, ecosystem service payments and dynamic pricing models, and direct them to ocean protection. The facility is expected to be launched in 2028, two years before the SDG 14 deadline, prompting scepticism over its ability to act in time.
Discussions at UNOC 3 also spotlighted other innovative financing mechanisms with active private sector participation. These include blue bonds, a contract between the borrower (the government, for instance) and the lender (investors), allowing the former to raise money from investors for ocean-friendly projects.
While Reitmeier found potential in blue bonds in channelling finance toward ocean-positive projects, she is cautious. “It is essential to remember we are not only facing a climate, biodiversity and pollution crisis—we are also in the midst of a debt crisis,” she said. Debt Justice, a UK-based charity, estimates that people in 54 countries are currently living in debt crisis. Issuing new bonds without addressing existing debt could exacerbate the problem.
Debt-for-nature swap, which involves purchasing foreign debt and converting it into local currency to fund conservation activities, was also discussed at the meet. “It can lead to the oversight of foreign entities, who can insert a set of conditionalities that prioritises investor returns,” warned McLellan.
Parametric insurance is another available tool where payouts are triggered automatically when a specific event — such as a heatwave, flood or poor air quality — exceeded a predefined limit. While this has potential in giving out pre-agreed payouts based on measurable environmental triggers, a critical piece of the puzzle often gets overlooked: Underlying data.
“Parametric products can work if long-term, reliable and trusted data, ideally from public institutions, is made available,” said Reitmeier, adding that many institutions, including those in the US, are seeing budget cuts, compromising the reliability needed to scale such instruments.
The conference also saw discussions on the Global Fund for Coral Reefs (GFCR), a public-private partnership launched in 2020 by UN members. It aims to mobilise $500 million in grants and capital. So far, GFCR-supported reef-positive solutions have received $87.47 million in funding, as per the UN Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office.
Prior to the conference, the International Maritime Organization rolled out the Net-Zero Framework on April 11, an agreement on regulations to impose a pricing mechanism for global shipping emissions and a new fuel standard for ships. But this will come into effect from 2028, when all vessels will be subjected to a charge on their greenhouse gas emissions if they exceed a certain threshold.
It is estimated that these measures could raise around $10 billion a year for developing countries. This, however, is lower than what is believed could be achieved by a more straightforward carbon levy of $60 billion, according to the “Ocean Finance for the Sus-tainable Ocean Economy” report released ahead of UNOC3.
Observers also remain sceptical about the private sector’s ability to bridge the funding gap. O’Donnell says governments often assume businesses will voluntarily close this gap, but historical evidence suggests otherwise. McLellan argues that traditional investment thinking, which prioritises return on investments, often leads to misguided solutions. “There are no quick fixes. We need sustainable solutions, capacity building and knowledge sharing in developing countries. We need grants, else we will end up propagating financial colonialism,” she says.
In 2024, Tamil Nadu secured a World Bank loan to enhance coastal biodiversity, resilience and abate pollution in Ennore and other coastal regions. Ennore residents await the day the area is restored to its earlier glory.
This was first published in the July 1-15, 2025 print edition of Down To Earth.