Ed Miliband delivered a speech at the 'Blue Finance and Innovation' event at CHOGM on 03 November 2026. He outlined UK leadership on ocean finance, private finance mobilisation, climate resilience and sustainable growth.
Can I begin by saying to you, Prime Minister, thank you so much for hosting us in your fantastic country. It has been a wonderful CHOGM so far and I can feel the positive atmosphere that you have created.
I’m also going to let people into a secret that when we met in our office a few weeks ago, I asked you what the secret of your great political success was, and you told me about the four-hour phone-in you do every Saturday with your population. I confess I have repeated this to a few other world leaders here who look slightly horrified and amazed.
Let’s put your hands together, ladies and gentlemen.
I also want to thank the Commonwealth Secretariat, the Association of Commonwealth Universities, and indeed the Centre of Excellence for Oceanography and the Blue Economy, and all the sponsors of today’s event.
I confess I feel a great sense of humility speaking here because I think there are amazing experts that we have with us and that we heard from on our panel. I’m not here as an expert. I’m here to offer political commitment on the issue of the oceans.
And I say that because I think the oceans are now in many ways at the centre of so many of the issues that we see in our world - seeing so much of the effects of the climate crisis, absorbing 80% of temperature rises, at the centre of prosperity for so many countries, and crucial to issues of security, trade, and conflict in the world.
And then just as oceans are central to the issues we face in our world, so the Commonwealth is central to the issue of the oceans. Home to a third of the world’s ocean under national jurisdiction and almost half of the world’s coral reefs.
And if I can make this point very honestly, I think all of this makes me think we have a challenge, and this is why I want to speak about my political commitment, which is to move oceans from what sometimes seems to be the margins of debates on climate, prosperity and security to the mainstream and centre of the debate.
And on behalf of the UK I accept our responsibility as a government, not least indeed as an island nation, to step up on these issues.
So let me just mention three or four areas in practice that I think are relevant here.
First, I think we learned, and we saw it in these presentations, that healthy oceans aren’t just an environmental priority but are an economic necessity for us all. Essential for the security of us all.
We know how the oceans sustain our food security and the productivity of the world’s most important fisheries. They provide jobs for millions of people and they sit at the centre of the culture and indeed identity of maritime nations across the world.
I was really fascinated by the presentation on the green transition and the opportunities that that offers to many nations. And I just want to say in that context, I not only acknowledge that opportunity, and indeed necessity, and I thought the graph that was produced about the net cost of the transition was a brilliant explanation of why this makes economic sense.
But let’s be frank about this. We have important meetings coming up at the IMO (International Maritime Organization) on these questions.
I want to say that the UK is absolutely committed to working through the IMO to drive a fair and effective global transition to green shipping.
Later this month I believe that the IMO will meet again in London to discuss the implementation of its greenhouse gas strategy and we remain absolutely committed to the aims of the IMO net zero framework and we do believe it’s the best way to decarbonise the sector.
We recognise some countries have concerns but we do not want to see the diluting of ambition because, as the chart so clearly showed, diluting its ambition will increase costs and that makes no sense.
This is in a way back to Lord Stern’s original insight into the climate crisis which is: not acting costs more than acting, and I think that we should bear that in mind very much on these issues. And I think the economic points about the opportunities this presents are very well taken.
The second point I just wanted to make is just in the context of sea level rise, which the Prime Minister spoke eloquently about, and the warming oceans.
We see the challenges for the territorial integrity of maritime nations. That competition for scarce resources.
In that context, the UK remains wholly committed to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. We have ratified the biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction agreement and want to make the first COP in January a success.
From COP31, together with Bermuda, we will ask all interested parties to sign the Hamilton II Declaration, recognizing the global importance of the Sargasso Sea and the need to protect it just as we are backing international efforts to tackle plastic pollution.
And I think these issues of sovereignty are very, very important, and respecting sovereignty is absolutely crucial in this world that we are in.
The third point I want to make, and it reflects something the Prime Minister said and indeed Diana Fox Carney, is that scaling up action requires scaling up finance as well. And I really want to acknowledge that.
The UK is committed to work with Commonwealth countries and with the whole financial system, including development banks and international funds to mobilize private capital and a lot more opportunities for growth in the blue economy.
Our new Planet Fund is supporting innovation, improving data, and helping to build the crucial issue of pipelines and investment-ready opportunities. And our support for the so-called Outrigger Facility helping early-stage enterprises in Small Island Developing States become investment ready.
I also want to acknowledge though, and this is part of our G20 presidency for next year, that private capital is crucial but we also must tackle the unsustainable debt burden that so many countries are facing across the Global South through our work with the multilateral development banks.