IPCC issues AR6 Report
On March 20, the final installment of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) was released.
AR6 report makes it perfectly clear: climate-ocean change has already caused impacts & irreversible losses to nature & people. We must act now to reduce emissions and maximize resilience of coastal communities and resources. The report also affirms that communities who have historically contributed the least to climate change are disproportionately affected.
Our big takeaways from the AR6 Report:
1. We must hold ambition for GHG reduction & achieve a net-0 society.
2. Solutions (including mitigation & adaptation) will not be uniform everywhere, we need many options.
3. Addressing climate-ocean change is a moral imperative.
However, despite dire warnings released by the IPCC, impacts of ongoing ocean warming, acidification, & oxygen loss (caused by increased GHG and carbon emissions) are often not reflected in climate mitigation or adaptation policy.
OA Alliance members are changing that by creating OA Action Plans that transform knowledge into local actions and integrate climate-ocean policies and investments.
At the OA Alliance, we also know that responding to OA is a necessary part of adequate & equitable climate preparedness & adaptation. That’s why we are calling for increased climate financing to support coastal adaptation strategies, targeted research and evaluation.
At present, climate financing for ocean adaptation is inadequate and does not reflect the level of severity or harm that climate change is posing to ocean resources and human communities. Less than 2% of international climate adaptation funding is flowing towards ocean and coastal adaptation projects. Only 1.6% of official development assistance supports the ocean economy. SDG 14 is the least funded of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Internationally, approximately 70% of the knowledge generated about ocean acidification comes from research conducted in North American and European countries.
On June 27th 2022, the first day of the United Nations Ocean Conference in Lisbon, Portugal, the OA Alliance and co-hosts convened a meeting titled, “Climate Financing for Ocean Adaptation and Resilience.”
The meeting brought together international and regional ocean acidification science and policy coordinating bodies, national government representatives, and major international climate finance regimes with charges to support countries in developing and implementing climate adaptation and resilience strategies that advance goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Sustainable Development 2030 Agenda.
Outcomes included a deepened understanding of the eligibility requirements of climate financing for ocean acidification adaptation and community resiliency strategies.
You can read the meeting summary and key takeaways here.
In advance of COP27, we prepared recommendations to the UNFCCC Ocean and Climate Dialogue for enhancing ocean adaptation and resilience. The Dialogue was introduced in the COP25 decision and mandated to occur annually in the COP26 decision, as Parties have increasingly recognized of the need to strengthen ocean mitigation and adaptation efforts in context of climate change and across the UNFCCC.
Learn more about our contributions to the UNFCCC Ocean and Climate Dialogue here.