To Make Oceans a Climate Priority, Advocates Look Beyond COP29

(Bloomberg) -- As the world’s largest carbon sink, the ocean is a crucial bulwark against runaway global warming, yet marine issues usually receive scant consideration at the annual United Nations climate summit. While observers don’t expect a breakthrough in Baku at COP29, ocean solutions are slowly getting on the agenda.

COP26 established the “Ocean and Climate Change Dialogue,” an annual meeting convened before the climate summit to discuss marine issues. The co-facilitators of this year’s dialogue, held in June in Bonn, were allotted three minutes to present their report on the opening day of the Baku conference.

“Blue carbon ecosystems, renewable ocean energy and advanced ocean technologies are key to scaling ocean-based solutions, but require sustainable financing and capacity-building support to maximize their potential,” co-facilitator Niall O’Dea, a Canadian fisheries official, told the delegates.

While ocean issues aren’t on the official agenda, they’re being discussed daily at COP29 at the Ocean Pavilion, a side event featuring panels on topics ranging from marine carbon dioxide removal to sustainable ocean finance.

A 2023 report commissioned by the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy found that eliminating offshore oil and gas production, ramping up offshore wind generation, decarbonizing shipping and restoring marine ecosystems could help limit temperature rise since the Industrial Revolution to 1.5 C. That’s the more ambitious target the 2015 Paris Agreement set to avoid the worse consequences of climate change. 

The Baku meeting is being called the “finance COP” as the main objective is to leave Azerbaijan with an agreement to dramatically ramp up climate funding for developing nations.

Observers say it’s highly unlikely that any final agreement will mention financing for ocean climate solutions. Instead, advocates are focusing on countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Under the Paris Agreement, every nation must submit an NDC every five years with a target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the actions it’ll take to achieve that goal.

Under the current NDCs, 73% of coastal and island nations have included at least one ocean-based climate action, according to a 2023 UN report, such as building offshore wind farms. “We are increasingly seeing countries include ocean-related issues and coastal resilience into their NDCs, but it is still not high enough on the international agenda,” said Karen Sack, executive director of the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance, a Washington nonprofit.

But pledges to take ocean-based climate action are just words without the money to implement them. So with updated NDCs due in February 2025, ocean advocates are pushing for the inclusion of specific measures with quantifiable results that could attract funding. That could involve a mangrove restoration project certified to sequester a certain amount of carbon dioxide or tidal energy system that would replace so many megawatts of fossil fuel generation. “NDCs are roadmaps through which the ocean as a climate solution can mobilize financing,” said Sack.

Anna-Marie Laura, senior director of climate policy at environmental nonprofit the Ocean Conservancy, said the expansion of offshore wind is one of the most effective ways to reduce emissions but only about 14% of NDCs include marine renewable energy measures. Most NDCs focus on nature-based solutions, such as conservation of wetlands that sequester carbon dioxide and protect coasts from storms.

“The restoration of those habitats absolutely is a solution but some of the most important solutions on the mitigation side are yet to be recognized in the way that we hope they could be,” said Laura, who is attending COP29.

Sack said it’s critical to supercharge financing for ocean climate action regardless of the outcome of COP29. “The bottom line is we don't really have time to negotiate for the next 10 years as to what the key words are that recognize the ocean as a climate solution,” she said.

(Updates the 10th paragraph with detail about Nationally Determined Contributions.)

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