Ocean Experts Urge Priority Actions
Ocean Experts Urge Priority Actions on
Coastal Protection, Warming
Seas, and Melting Arctic Ice
A New White
Paper from UMass Institute
Traces the
Intensifying Web of Interconnections among
Climate
Change, Ocean Impacts, and International Security
by Felix
Dodds and Michael Strauss
The Collaborative Institute for Oceans, Climate and
Security (CIOCS), based at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, has just
published a policy and governance White Paper analyzing the pervasive impacts
of global climate change on the world’s oceans, and the multiple potential ways that changing oceans and atmosphere can affect
human societies and disrupt nations.
The White Paper, titled Ocean-Related Impacts of
Climate Change on Human and National Security, expands upon and updates
conclusion drawn from the Global Conference on Oceans, Climate, and Security
(GC’12), organized by CIOCS. The paper
was co-written by the authors of this blog, and by Robbin Peach, director of the
Institute.
The Paper describes the cascading impacts of climate and
ocean changes on international security systems, on coastal populations, on
human health, on ocean resources, and on the rapidly melting Arctic. It highlights a series of Priority Actions
that can – and must – be taken to avoid the most destructive of those possible
outcomes, defining more than three dozen specific actions.
The key political and economic actors who need to take
leadership responsibility for initiating those actions are then identified. It calls for advance planning and cooperation
among national and local governments, international agencies, the private
sector, educators, media, non-profit organizations (NGOs), and the U.S. Navy
and maritime forces.
In the last 15 years the U.S. has experienced 12 of the
hottest years on record, with heat waves, droughts, wildfires and floods all
now more frequent and more intense.
Over the last nine months, the American public has watched
ocean and climate change struggling to move up the political agenda. The crowded and contentious reality of that
agenda may make it tempting for many political leaders to – once again – defer
action on an issue that is so complex and so far-reaching into the future that it
can almost seem not to exist in the real worlds of the present.
But the all-too-real impacts of Superstorm Sandy painfully
illustrated the potential impact of the changing weather patterns that all
countries can come to expect on a regular basis. Those effects that involve oceans will be
felt by not only by coastal developing nations which rely on the seas as a
primary source of protein for hundreds of millions of people, but by virtually
all countries – coastal and inland, developed and developing – which depend on
the transportation, recreation, nutrition and energy industries supported by
the world’s oceans and their ecosystems.
The secondary and tertiary impacts on human security, and
thereby on international political security, are rapidly emerging as a multi-layered
issue that is still only partially understood.
Initial previews of such impacts might be the images of –
· Canada’s naval forces steaming to patrol newly opened Arctic shipping lanes following a U.S. announcement that it would seek to sail those as international waters.
· Food riots in Mexico City in 2007 following spiking prices of corn meal brought on by a combination of regional droughts and financial speculation half a world away.
U.S. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, who was among the 225
participants at the UMass conference, said:
“Compared to a century ago, oceans are now warmer, higher,
stormier, saltier, lower in oxygen and more acidic. Any one of these would be cause for concern. Collectively, they cry out for action.”
The White Paper lists a series of recommendations for action in five priority areas: the climate-oceans-security nexus; coastal and population effects; climate, oceans, and human health; Arctic impacts; and ocean benefits.
Among its highlights, the Paper calls for:
- The United States to urgently ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea UNCLOS and its two implementation agreements – the Part XI Deep-Sea Mining Agreement and the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement.
- The Arctic Council member governments to significantly upgrade the political status of the Council by establishing the Ottawa Declaration as a treaty with legally binding obligations, by providing it a permanent independent secretariat, and by providing it an active role in ecosystem-based management (a strategy partially acted upon by the Council’s May 15, 2013 decision to add China and five other nations as associate members).
- The Arctic Council to assume responsibility for –
- reviewing compliance with IMO Arctic
Shipping Guidelines and IACS Unified Requirements for Polar-class
ships.
- addressing regulatory
gaps covering marine research, archaeology, bio-prospecting, laying of
cables and pipelines, artificial islands and seabed construction, and
military activities.
- reviewing emerging and
new maritime activities such as deep-sea tourism, CO2 sequestration,
and floating installations
- Scientists, businesses and local authorities to
cooperate to rapidly research ecologically
sustainable methods for building coastal resilience against storm surges
- Governments to restructure
subsidies to the insurance industry for coverage of coastal properties
through the National Flood Insurance Policy, and require that those sited
on the coast pay full insurance rates.
In September 2010, then-Senator John Kerry effectively
framed the inter-sectoral connections and the political challenges these issue bring
–
As the White Paper narrates, it will be up to political leaders like the newly-appointed Secretary of State Kerry – working in coherent collaboration with local authorities, ocean agencies, educators, businesses, and NGOs – to track the emerging challenges, create effective strategic responses, and channel the technological, economic and political resources to take clear and necessary actions.
drawn from the discussions of the Global Conference on Oceans, Climate
and Security
at the University of Massachusetts Boston
written by
Robbin Peach, University of Massachusetts Boston
Michael Strauss, Earth Media
for the
Collaborative Institute for Oceans, Climate and Security
University of Massachusetts Boston
Press release available here
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