Great news last week!

A U.N. tribunal on maritime law said that countries are legally required to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, a victory for small island nations that are on the front lines of climate change.

The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea found that carbon emissions qualify as marine pollution and said countries must take steps to mitigate and adapt to their adverse effects.

It was the first ruling to come in three cases in which advisory opinions have been sought from international courts about climate change.

Experts say the decision, though not legally binding, could profoundly impact international and domestic law on climate change.

“The opinion is a clarification of international legal obligations,” said Joie Chowdhury, a senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law.

China, Russia and India are among the 169 parties to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, the treaty that underpins the court. The United States, which is the world’s biggest historic emitter of greenhouse gases, is not a party.

“The ocean can breathe a sigh of relief today,” Cheryl Bazard, the Bahamas’ ambassador to the European Union told reporters. Louise Fournier, a legal advisor at Greenpeace, said in a statement that the tribunal’s opinion “marks a significant step forward in international environmental law and the protection of our oceans.”

Small island states are among the most vulnerable nations to climate change, facing encroaching seas, recording breaking temperatures and increasingly severe storms. Last year, Australia offered to allow residents of Tuvalu to relocate to escape the effects of climate change.

Ocean temperatures in particular have increased, worsening the impact on coastal states.

“Without rapid action, climate change may prevent my children and grandchildren from living on their ancestral home,” Gaston Alfonso Browne, the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, told the tribunal last year.

Source: @worldeconomicforum @ecowatch ...

Trawling Bycatch Tracker in Alaska captured this video of an orca that was a victim of bycatch. We’re unsure if the orca survived, but instances like this are very common onboard fishing vessles.

Bottom trawling captures everything in their path, including sharks, seabirds, marine turtles, and cetaceans(whales, dolphins, porpoises).

The nets are incredibly hard to see, blending in perfectly with the water and difficult for cetaceans to detect by echolocation.

It’s estimated that over 300,000 small whales, dolphins, and porpoises die from entanglement in fishing nets each year, making this the single largest cause of mortality for small cetaceans.

We must raise awareness about the devastation that trawling has on unintended species. Please share this video and speak up for these innocent victims.

Information from World Wildlife Fund

Video: Trawling Bycatch Tracker ...