The ocean as a solution to climate change: opportunities for action

The ocean covers 70 percent of Earth’s surface and acts as a vast storehouse for both carbon dioxide and heat, amongst providing other ecosystem services vital to humanity. Whilst climate change imperils marine life, the ocean is increasingly recognised as providing opportunities for solutions in the fight against climate change. In research commissioned by the Ocean Panel, we lay out a series of feasible, ready-to implement, scalable ocean-based solutions to climate change that can be pursued now for seven sectors: ocean-based renewable energy; ocean-based transport; marine conservation and restoration; ocean-based food, carbon capture and storage, offshore oil and gas, and ocean-based tourism. We also examine emerging technologies, such as marine carbon dioxide removal, that may offer opportunity for combatting climate change in the near future. 

 

We find that full implementation of ocean-based climate solutions that are ready for action now across 

the seven sectors could reduce the emissions gap by up to 35 percent on a 1.5°C pathway, and by up to 47 percent on a 2.0°C pathway, in 2050. This translates to an estimated reduction of between 1–4 Gt of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per annum in 2030 and 4–14 Gt CO2e in 2050. Greatest mitigation potential of ready to implement solutions was associated with ocean-based renewable energy (3.60 Gt CO2e in 2050), and phasing down offshore oil and gas (5.30 Gt CO2e in 2050). High mitigation potential was also identified for marine carbon dioxide removal approaches, but this emerging approach may be associated with potential environmental and social impacts that are not yet well understood. 

 

We find that despite an increased awareness of the ocean’s potential, there remains an urgent need to fill knowledge gaps in all ocean-based climate sectors to understand how to implement these solutions in a manner that also supports wider social, environmental, and Sustainable Development Goals, particularly the new Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Achieving the identified mitigation potential will also be dependent on the prioritisation of a more coherent approach to ocean-climate finance. We argue that all ocean-based climate solutions will require deepening political engagement, strengthening international and national institutions, greater engagement and coordination across businesses and industry, inclusion of communities and stakeholders, and robust monitoring and evaluation.