The Blue World Perspective 2021

Innovating at the
ocean-climate nexus
For too long, the world’s attempts to grapple with the climate crisis have had an ocean-sized blind spot. Despite the profound
inter-connections between oceans and climate, in the first twenty years of negotiations of the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change before the Paris Summit in 2016, oceans were not mentioned in any of their official texts. Only in
the last decade have ocean advocates effectively lobbied for oceans to be included in the preamble of the Paris Agreement and
persuaded the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to publish a new Special Report on “the Ocean and Cryosphere
in a Changing Climate” in September 2019.
This recent attention has made one thing clear: in a profound sense, oceans and the climate are part of one global living system.
Oceans are central to the regulation of our climate, absorb massive quantities of heat and carbon, and provide the thermal inertia
anchoring relatively stable weather patterns across the earth’s surface for millennia. In our attempts to address the climate crisis,
we have focused primarily on terrestrial emission sources, impacts of climate on earth-bound populations and ecosystems, and
promising land-based solutions, but have often ignored both the negative impacts of climate change on oceans and the exciting
potential of ocean-based climate solutions. In essence, we failed to connect the dots.
Dr. Daniel Vermeer
Duke University
Our inability to adequately account for ocean/climate processes increases our climate risks and limits our ability to use the ocean
to effectively mitigate and adapt to climate-related threats. We need to give more attention to the ocean/climate nexus, mapping
the linkages between climate patterns and ocean impacts, as well as exploring potential ocean-based opportunities to mitigate
and adapt to climate change. These approaches are diverse, including offshore wind development, blue carbon ecosystem
restoration, coastal resilience, macroalgae cultivation, and many others – some of which are featured in this report.
How can accelerate progress? We can start by re-centering oceans in our conversations about the climate crisis. We can also
help increase investment and implementation of ocean-centric approaches to mitigate climate change and improve our ability to
adapt to a more turbulent world. This 2021 Blue World Perspective helps to make a compelling case for ocean-based innovation
on climate, and we can build on this momentum. The oceans have always paid a critical albeit under-appreciated role in our
climate, but they must be an even more important arena for ambitious climate action in the future. To bring these solutions to
scale, we must challenge our taken-for-granted approaches to climate action, and re-orient to a new geography of possibilities on
the world’s seas.