Identifying a ‘blue ambition loop’ to accelerate ocean-based climate action

 

The ocean can ensure food security, clean water, energy transition, livelihoods, as well as significant  economic benefits for people around the world,  from coastal to landlocked countries. It can act as a natural  buffer against climate impacts and is essential to the maintenance of marine life, which provides vital resources for the well-being and sustainable development of people. Yet, the richness of marine biodiversity is under threat. The combined impacts of climate change and human activities has led to unprecedented biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation in the ocean. From deoxygenation to warming, climate-induced changes undermine the ocean’s ability to mitigate climate change. As these crises are so connected, the solutions must be as well. 

At the crossroads of all major challenges facing humanity today, ocean-based climate solutions are key to deliver on climate and biodiversity targets. Research commissioned by the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy found that full implementation of ocean-based solutions in five key sub-sectors (i.e., conservation, energy, transport, food and carbon capture and storage (CCS)) could reduce the emissions gap needed to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C by 21% annually by 2050 (Hoegh-Guldberg et al, 2019), in line with the Paris Agreement. 

There has been a strong momentum for ocean-based climate solutions (e.g., Because the Ocean initiative), with a growing number of countries including ocean measures in their national climate strategies. Over 70 percent of new or updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) include at least one ocean-based climate action (Khan et al., 2022; Lecerf et al., 2021). The adoption of a recurring Ocean & Climate Change Dialogue under SBSTA, last year at COP26 in Glasgow, further demonstrated countries’ commitment towards ocean-based climate action, anchoring the ocean in international climate negotiations. Yet, governments need to ‘swim the talk’ a lot faster if we are to rise to the challenge and keep the 1.5°C target within reach. 

 

Increasingly active and ambitious, non-state actors can play a major role in encouraging ambitious climate policies.  Their actions can send a strong positive signal to governments in support of ambitious ocean-based climate policy. This vote of confidence provides the clarity and trust that governments need to then unlock further opportunities and investments. This “blue ambition loop” – i.e., the positive feedback loop in which bold government policies and non-state actor leadership reinforce each other – provides opportunities to take ocean-based climate action to the next level.

The Ocean & Climate Platform, alongside the World Resources Institute (WRI), the High-level Climate Champions (HLC), the Global Ocean Trust and the UN Global Compact, undertook a mapping exercise to track, aggregate and visualise progress made by non-state actors towards ocean-based climate actions. The ‘Blue Ambition Loop: Achieving Ambitious 2030 Ocean-Climate Action’ report is a short visual summary of findings. It addresses five key sectors: marine conservation, ocean-based transport, marine renewable energy, aquatic food production and coastal tourism. 

The objective is to raise awareness around non-state actor commitments and recent progress on ocean-based climate action, as well as to serve as an input to the Global Stocktake in preparation for COP28 in 2023. The data shows that non-states actors (i.e., companies, financial institutions, intergovernmental organisations, NGOs, scientific institutions, and cities) are seeing opportunity in the sustainable blue economy and leveraging ocean-based climate action. 

While COP27 focuses on the implementation of climate action, this publication is another step towards the need to involve all stakeholders in raising ambition to achieve the objectives of the Paris agreement. By reinforcing each other’s actions, governments and non state actors can unlock faster progress on national decarbonization objectives and become leaders of the transformative change we need for a sustainable future.

Click the link here to access the publication.