As the world’s ocean acidification community gathers in Wellington, Pacific governments, scientists and finance institutions lay out how the region is turning science into climate action ahead of COP3
While El Niño and marine heatwaves dominate headlines across the globe, their less visible counterpart – ocean acidification – is quietly changing the chemistry of the waters that feed and protect millions.
The Pacific – a region of large ocean states and thousands of islands – is among the most exposed to its effects and among the least contributing to its cause. Yet far from resigning itself to the impacts, it is leading the response at international and local scales.
Monday in Wellington, regional governments, scientists, intergovernmental bodies and financial institutions gathered to drive the region’s response to climate-ocean change forward, at a special meeting convened by the International Alliance to Combat Ocean Acidification (OA Alliance) and the International Atomic Energy Agency, OA Coordination Centre.
The session, “Advancing Priority Science and Policy Action on Ocean Acidification in the Asia-Pacific Region”, opens the second week in which the Pacific hosts the world. It sets the stage for the 6th Ocean in a High-CO₂ World Symposium (13-16 October), the largest global gathering of ocean acidification practitioners, held every four years.
It also follows last week’s Pre-COP31 in Nadi, Fiji, where Pacific leaders made the case for putting the ocean at the heart of the climate agenda. The OA Alliance took part as an invited observer to the meeting and screened the short film, Changing Waters, which features Fiji’s leadership on connecting ocean acidification into domestic and international climate policy action.
An invisible but mounting threat
Ocean acidification is the result of the ocean absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, making seawater more acidic and stripping it of the carbonate that corals, shellfish and plankton need to build shells and skeletons.
Surface ocean acidity has risen by around 30% since the Industrial Revolution and has already breached its planetary boundary, or what scientists consider to be outside a safe operating space for a healthy and stable Earth.
Unlike seasonal patterns that are amplified by climate change such as El Niño, acidification is a trend that keeps building. In ecosystems such as coral reefs, the two form a harmful combination: El Niño warming triggers bleaching, and acidification makes it harder for reefs to rebuild.
“The ocean has been quietly absorbing our excess carbon dioxide for a long time, and that service to the planet has a limit and a cost. We are now beginning to see increases in ocean acidification that should worry policymakers. As the ocean rises up the climate agenda, governments can no longer overlook this impact of carbon on global food security and on human health and wellbeing,” said Jessie Turner, Executive Director of the OA Alliance.
Understanding what is at stake for the Pacific requires dedicated regional science For Pacific Islanders, the ocean is a source of identity, wellbeing and livelihoods.
Fish provide 50-90 percent of the animal protein eaten by its coastal communities, and healthy coral reefs can absorb up to 97 percent of the wave energy that would otherwise hit shorelines. But regional assessments now rate both reefs and food security as highly vulnerable to acidification.
While the cultural, environmental, and economic significance of marine resources are well documented, how different locations or key species will respond to increasing global ocean acidification is still being studied. As a field of research, ocean acidification has been evolving to become increasingly regionalized, though disparities in targeted knowledge that aid in effective response are a problem.
“The impacts of acidification vary locally and threaten marine life of ecological, cultural, and economic importance here in the Pacific and around the world. It’s important that regional and local science is connecting back to communities and decision makers to help identify where the most effective adaptation strategies can be deployed and guided by local priorities,” said Christina McGraw, University of Otago.
A region not waiting to take action
The Pacific’s response has been well underway for more than a decade. Regional bodies such as the Pacific Community (SPC) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), have come together with Earth Sciences New Zealand to drive the science, monitoring and policy work.
In 2014, the Pacific Partnership on Ocean Acidification – coordinated by SPREP with SPC and the University of the South Pacific, and funded by New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Principality of Monaco – identified which locations should be monitored for ocean acidification, building baselines across the Pacific in Fiji, Tokelau and Vanuatu. Communities planted mangroves, restored coral, and set up locally managed marine areas.
This led to the creation of the OA Centre now hosted by Pacific Community, which is outlining best opportunities for expanding baseline research and studying key species, like oysters, skipjack and yellowfin tuna larvae.
From community nurseries to high-tech monitoring, local action to build resilience to climate change and acidification is varied and gathering pace: On Taveuni in Fiji, a village women’s group raised more than 2,500 mangrove seedlings. On Tarawa in Kiribati, a first-of-its-kind locally managed marine area restores coral, mangroves, and seagrass together. And in Palau, a monitoring buoy tracks the changing chemistry of local waters around the clock.
Finance is starting to move too. The Asian Development Bank is carrying out ocean acidification vulnerability assessments across the region in three locations: Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia – a sign that the institutions responsible for supporting the Pacific’s response to the impacts of climate change on marine resources, fisheries, and food systems are starting to account for the risk.
“In response to ocean acidification’s significant environmental and economic risks, ADB has launched a study to assess the region’s exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. The study will strengthen the evidence base, monitoring, and management, and help integrate ocean acidification into planning and decision-making,” said Mary Kim, Asian Development Bank.
What comes next: COP31
World leaders and climate negotiators will be meeting for COP31 in Anatalya, Türkiye in less than a month. There, countries will grapple with how to centre the ocean in the climate change agenda, specifically as relates to curbing our greenhouse gas and carbon emissions as well as responding to the impacts already accruing in our ocean and along coastlines.
Acidification is central to that case, not only as one of the clearest signs of how carbon emissions are changing the sea, but as an instructive case study for how regions have already begun responding and the support needed to continue. Collaborative locally led efforts to monitor, identify research priorities and build resilience – such as the Pacific’s – offer a model for ocean-climate action more widely.
Dr Sivendra Michael, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, Fiji said: “Ocean acidification caused by excess CO2 further clarifies the critical need to deliver rapid emissions cuts and has always been part of Fiji’s rationale on the need to limit global average temperature rise to below 1.5 degrees. At the recent Pre-COP negotiators meeting in Nadi, we’ve called for strong ocean outcomes at COP31.”
He added, “We want to see a global commitment to integrating ocean mitigation and adaptation solutions into NDCs and NAPs and commitments that ensure climate finance mobilised under the UNFCCC supports national efforts to protect our oceans from climate harm.”
The OA Alliance and its members bring that work into climate negotiations. The Alliance is calling on governments to:
● Join the OA Alliance and nominate an ocean acidification focal point in their ministry
● Commit to reporting on SDG indicator 14.3.1 on ocean acidity
● Bring ocean acidification into their next Nationally Determined Contribution or National
Adaptation Plan
● Back ocean action across mitigation, adaptation and finance at COP31, including funding
for monitoring and regional coordination on ocean acidification measurement and
response.
