Climate Change and Protecting the Oceans
Dr Nilufer Oral, a member of the Law Faculty at Istanbul Bilgi University and a Member of the UN International Law Commission gave a fascinating presentation in 2018 on “Climate Change and Protecting the Oceans: A Tale of Two Regime’s”.
Dr Oral first gave an authoritative account of some of the key ways in which climate change is affecting the oceans. She then compared the main Conventions seeking to protect the oceans and climate, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, ‘UNCLOS’ signed in 1982 and before climate change became such a dominant subject: and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement, which Dr Oral described as mainly focused on ‘terrestrial and atmospheric’ topics and less on the effects of climate change on oceans.
Dr Oral described the three key effects of climate change on oceans as -
Ocean warming
Ocean deoxygenation
Ocean acidification.
Ocean Warming
Ocean warming is causing rapid loss of sea ice in Antarctica in particular. Bleaching coral reefs are one visible symptom. Oceans have absorbed more than 93% of heat generated by man made global warming since 1971 (IUCN). It may already be affecting some of the fundamentally important ocean currents such as the Gulf Stream. There may be as much as 2.5 Gigatonnes of frozen methane hydrates on the seabed, and warmer seas could result in its release to the water and eventually to the atmosphere. Ocean warming stores 90% of the energy accumulated between 1971 and 2010 – only 1% is stored in the atmosphere. In the last 40 years, oceans have become warmer, salinity is changing, carbon content increasing, PH value changing and oxygen levels decreasing in the upper layers. Ocean warming is also leading to species shifts, with many fish species migrating northwards towards cooler polar regions, and changes in sea fish species around our shores.
Ocean Deoxygenation
Ocean deoxygenation is the depletion of oxygen in the upper levels of the oceans, which could have dramatic effects on the viability and distribution of fish and other species.
Ocean Acidification
Ocean acidification has resulted from the absorption by the oceans of 50% of the CO2 from fossil fuels burned over the last 200 years. This is thought to have reduced the PH of oceans by 0.1% since the industrial era, which makes it harder for marine creatures that depend on them to make shells, with further stresses on plankton, coral and molluscs.
Dr Oral then presented a compelling analysis of the ways in which the UNCLOS and UNFCCC/Paris Agreement do not really recognise their scientific interdependence. UNCLOS does not do enough to recognise the critical importance of climate change, being negotiated before that became so obvious. The UNFCCC and Paris Agreement have too much of a “territorial orientation”, and despite a few references, do not go far enough to underline the vital links between protection of the world’s oceans and being able to achieve the Paris Agreement goals.
Dr Oral’s full presentation can be found here.