The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report is out. Together with Financing the Transition: How to Make the Money Flow for a Net-zero Economy, the report’s message is clear: the grim reality is that we are likely to reach a temperature increase of 1.5°C sometime between 2030 and 2052. Moreover, emissions need to be reduced by at least 43% by 2030 and 60% by 2035 to avoid this.

Both reports suggest that there is still time and money to achieve a just net-zero transition by 2050. Exactly how is still up in the air, but we ardently believe that the only way to succeed is to join the dots by harnessing the ocean’s power on every level.

Inextricable link

Despite the efforts that John Kerry, the US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, most recently reiterated at the 8th Our Ocean Conference in Panama City, the ocean-climate (and therefore biodiversity) connection has not fully entered the collective consciousness.

“The climate crisis and the ocean are inextricably linked, and even one and the same. You cannot solve the problem of the climate crisis without solving the problem of the ocean, because it is the heat that comes from the warming of the planet that goes into the ocean. Ninety percent of that heat goes into the ocean,” said Mr Kerry at the conference.

This excess heat is responsible for warming, increased moisture and increased intensity in winds and storms; it is also behind the increased level of flooding that is occurring globally.

The cost of the climate crisis is not lost on the insurance world. According to Christian Aid, the most expensive storm in 2022 cost US$100bn while the deadliest floods killed 1,700 and displaced 7m people. The 10 most expensive climate-related disasters collectively caused more than US$165bn worth of damage.

Moreover, this Economist Impact infographic shows that the ocean is the crucial red thread to achieving all of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. Yet finance, corporations and governments continue to think in silos.

It is easier to understand the ocean’s potential when you see that it covers more than 70% of the Earth’s surface, specifically 27% territorial waters and 43% areas beyond national jurisdiction.

There is a glimmer of hope with the historic High Seas Treaty.

To read the full blog and find out why Chris Gorell Barnes sees a glimmer of hope with the new treaty, click here.

The heat dome over Canada’s Pacific Northwest that killed hundreds of humans and “cooked” one billion sea creatures; Europe’s catastrophic floods; and the worst wildfires in almost a decade could become our new normal.

Released in August, Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis, the first part of the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), states that such extreme weather will become more frequent.

UN secretary-general António Guterres has called this report a “code red” for humanity. It highlights that emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from human activities are responsible for approximately 1.1°C of warming since 1850-1900.

To avoid global temperatures exceeding 1.5°C of warming over the next 20 years, we cannot emit more than 400bn tonnes of CO₂—a quantity we are currently set to emit in less than a decade.

Pledges for net zero are coming in thick and fast as we slowly transition to solar, wind, biomass, hydro, geothermal and hydrogen energy. Carbon capture and storage is being attempted, but as recent forest fires attest, mass tree-planting cannot be our only solution.

So, what else can be done? And why is the ocean, which makes up more than 70% of the planet’s surface and is the Earth’s largest homeostatic mechanism, being largely ignored in the global climate-crisis discussion?

The ocean is suffering from the effects of global warming, having absorbed more than 90% of the excess heat produced since the Industrial Revolution. Coral bleaching, marine heat waves, interrupted fish migration and ocean acidification are all evidence of this.

Moreover, ocean currents are amplifying the effect of rising temperatures and melting the polar caps to a point that could see sea levels rising by one metre by 2100, according to the IPCC’s report Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate.

But in its vastness, the ocean also holds solutions to the climate crisis.

To read the full blog and find out how the ocean holds the solutions to the climate crisis, click here.