2025 ends on a bleak note.  Many global challenges  loom large and pose a serious threat to human security,  particularly in developing nations,  aka the Global South, whose less privileged citizens are the most vulnerable when a challenge becomes an imminent threat. The bleakness is compounded by the fact that the major powers have shown little inclination to acknowledge the severity of the cross-domain challenges that can soon morph into catastrophes, thereby  endangering  life on the planet. Effective, empathetic and resolute global governance is missing and this was triggered to a considerable extent by the assumption of office for a second (non-consecutive) term by US President Donald Trump in January 2025.

Until recently the dreaded nuclear weapon  was deemed to be the most serious of global challenges,  since it had the destructive  potential to cause apocalyptic damage to life and contaminate  the planet irreparably, with radioactive waste that has a half-life period of centuries. Mercifully the nuclear weapon has not been used in anger since Hiroshima-Nagasaki in August 1945, but the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear disasters did deliver a dire warning,    and while there has been some nuclear  sabre-rattling (Russia most recently), there is a sliver of hope that a degree of rationality will prevail and that there will be no repeat of the mushroom cloud that permanently scarred Japan in World War II.

The second global challenge that can turn life-threatening is climate change and its attendant strands  such as global warming and  a rise in sea levels/ temperatures. The latter exigency    can threaten the delicately balanced  food chain in the maritime domain and impact human security in a very adverse manner.

Triple Planetary Crisis

The alarm bell was sounded in the latest UN Global Environment Outlook (GEO) report titled ‘Global Environment Outlook 7: A Future We Choose.’

Released  on December 9 in Nairobi during the seventh session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-7), this flagship assessment, authored by 287 multidisciplinary scientists from 82 countries, represents the most comprehensive global environmental evaluation to date.

The summary of this report is that the world faces a triple planetary crisis: climate change;  biodiversity loss (including land degradation and desertification) ;  and pollution/waste with interlinkages to  human security.  Business-as-usual projections indicate severe impacts by 2050, including a potential 4 percent  reduction in global GDP from climate change alone, millions of premature deaths from pollution, increased forced migration, and risks of crossing irreversible tipping points as ecosystems collapse on land and in the oceans.

Unsustainable consumption levels in the developed world and little recognition that this has to be curtailed add to the problem and the latest GEO report emphasizes the interconnected crises of climate, nature  and pollution, warning of a "dire future" for billions without urgent systemic shifts.

Chongqing  Symposium 

This author was invited to a symposium on global governance held in China  in mid-December  under the aegis of the Bai Ze Institute of Strategic Studies, Southwest University of Political Science and Law, Chongqing and the Faculty of Political Science, Thammasat University, Bangkok and my observations dwelt on the maritime domain and global governance.

This theme for the Chongqing  symposium was  particularly relevant and timely namely,  “The Contemporary Connotation and Global Significance of the Global Governance Initiative (GGI)”. The Global Governance Initiative (GGI) is a potentially major policy  proposal announced by  President Xi Jinping on September 1, 2025, during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Plus summit in Tianjin attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Vladimir Putin among other leaders.

The GGI  is the fourth in a series of "global initiatives" put forward by Xi, following the Global Development Initiative (GDI, 2021), Global Security Initiative (GSI, 2022), and Global Civilization Initiative (GCI, 2023). These four initiatives collectively aim to address interconnected global challenges in development, security, civilization, and governance, while promoting a "community with a shared future for mankind."

The focus on a "shared future for mankind" has a special resonance  as it corresponds with the Indian vision  and belief in the spirit of ‘Vasudeva Kutmbakam’, loosely translated as  ‘all the world is one family’. This is a theme that PM Modi has repeatedly highlighted and this was evidenced in the G 20 deliberations that India steered as the Chair in 2024. 

Currently global maritime governance is regulated under the UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas) introduced in 1982 and a host of other protocols and norms that relate to merchant shipping, piracy, criminal activities in the high seas, oceanic pollution, choke points et al.

It is instructive that the USA having signed  has not ratified  the UNCLOS,  though it has pledged compliance with its main provisions;  and China, though being a signatory, has rejected certain international rulings related to its territorial claims in the South China Sea. The judicial determination in the Philippines versus China claims was derived from the UNCLOS and Beijing has refused to accept this ruling.

Currently the Indo-Pacific has become a zone of competition and contestation between the USA and China and Washington is determined to maintain its primacy in the maritime domain. Hence any suggestion that the major powers can consensually address issues of global maritime governance will be premature. India is a member of the US led Quad (along with Japan and Australia) and China is wary of how this group will operate in the years ahead.

The India-China bilateral is also brittle after the 2020 Galwan incident (where troops clashed along the Line of Control in Ladakh) and  the September 2025 SCO summit in Tianjin marked the beginning of a tentative thaw. Currently there is no cooperation or collaboration between India and China in any domain. Both nations seek to provide leadership to the Global South, yet have different initiatives.

Oceans Offer Opportunity

Against this geopolitical backdrop, I suggested that the maritime domain  offers an opportunity to address two issues of critical relevance. One is related to pollution – specifically plastic pollution in the oceans and seas; and the other is over-fishing.

Professionals are aware of the degree to which both these issues are reaching the tipping point and various global studies have indicated that the amber lights are flashing. Currently traces of plastic have been found in certain types of fish, and these in turn are being consumed by human beings. The long-term harmful effects of this food chain need little reiteration.

Similarly over-fishing due to technological advances in positioning factory ships and trawling the oceans 24/7 is akin to killing the goose that lays the golden egg.  Professional  estimates suggest  that certain fish stocks have crossed the tipping point of regeneration and the "dire future" that the GEO report warned of is already here.

As two large maritime nations with aspirations to be global leaders and who have also been identified as contributors to both these problems (China in both cases and India in relation to plastic pollution), if Beijing and Delhi  are committed to equitable global governance, their actions on the ground must harmonize with their policy rhetoric.

The oceans offer an opportunity to pursue their own initiatives – GGI in the case of China and the Mahasagar vision for India – and the progress they make can serve as a building block for next steps that include other nations.

Effective global governance is  urgently needed. Can the two Asian giants rise to the challenge ?

(The author is an Indian Navy veteran and President, Society for Policy Studies, New Delhi. Views are personal. He can be reached at cudaybhaskar@spsindia.in)