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Welcome to World Ocean Radio…
I’m Peter Neill, Director of the World Ocean Observatory.
In March, United States President Joe Biden announced without much fanfare, and with much surprise, an Ocean Climate Action Plan. As the United States, over the terms of our last three Presidents, has not advanced such planning, the announcement was most welcome and pertains primarily to technological fixes that are ocean-related, thus important, if only as goals, however now iterated and achieved.
The contents identify four focus areas:
• To support ocean research, observations, modeling, and synthesis.
• To create a carbon-neutral future, to include offshore wind and marine energy, green maritime shipping, C02 sequestration in sub-seabed geologic formations, marine C02 removal, and priority address of ocean acidification.
• To accelerate Nature-based solutions, to include blue carbon, marine protected areas, and ocean co-benefits of land-based climate actions.
• To enhance community resilience to ocean change, to include climate ready fisheries, resources, aquaculture, fishing communities, and coastal protections.
What is most important about this is that it was even announced at all. Past National Ocean Plans have existed and their impact has been negligible, primarily because of the power of the fossil fuel industry to control public discussion and political debates, and the lack of appropriated resources, with the exception of NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has been funded mostly to address the first focus area, marine science and exploration.
The organizing connection between all these focus areas is technology. Heretofore, offshore wind has been left primarily to the states for evaluation and permitting, and to private capital for finance. Green maritime shipping has already been promoted by the UN International Maritime Organization and the shipping companies themselves. Removal of CO2 and its sequestration in the seabed has heretofore been a marginal strategy at best, mostly advanced by think tanks and start-ups. And the fundamental issue of ocean acidification has been hardly addressed at all.
The inclusion of Nature-based solutions is most hopeful. Blue carbon remains mostly a bright idea. The United States, along with various American foundations, have supported the creation of marine protected areas within our territorial waters, managed those designated with NGO and local partners, and called for their expansion as part of the global initiative to protect 30% of the open ocean by 2030. The relationship between ocean and landside events now seems better understood, primarily as a result of extreme weather, drought, freshwater depletion, and more – all of which as revelation of cause and effect of the ocean on changing climate.
Finally, while the most obvious, the most surprising focus of them all is the recognition that all the science and all the technology has impact directly on people: the social communities of coastal residents, fishers, aqua-culturalists, innovators and start-up entrepreneurs, recreational users, artists, tourists, and residents drawn to the beauty of the coast as the edge and access to the dynamic environment and oceanic feeling that affects and connects us all.
Every action has an equal and affirming reaction, and each one of these, individually or as part of a coherent strategy, is a serious step forward on a path that has been left untrod for far too long. But this Ocean Climate Action Plan must now find footing in the form of administrative priority, congressional funding, financial investment, and applied success. And it cannot be a reason for ignoring the other innovations and changes that must also accompany its intent, its international relation, and its contribution toward a larger plan, with many more, many different elements, that must be adopted and integrated as part of a whole vastly beyond the sum of its parts. It is just one piece of a larger, more complicated puzzle, that will require more than these first ideas realized, more than an announcement, more than a welcome intention. The ocean demands its equal and affirming reaction, from us: and it is THAT we must further define, expand, devise, and apply; and THAT is the purpose of RESCUE: R for renewal, E for environment, S for society, C for collaboration, U for understanding, and E for engagement.
We will discuss these issues, and more, in future editions of World Ocean Radio.
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