Ocean and Climate Change Action: Opportunities for Economic and Environmental Sustainability

Abstract

The year 2017 was a major one for highlighting the impacts of climate change on the world’s oceans and the subsequent effects upon the global population. For decades rising sea levels, intensification of storms, continued melting of Arctic sea ice and permafrost, and deterioration of coral reefs have been increasing the vulnerability of our coasts to erosion, flooding, and salt water intrusion. Scientists have been warning of the catastrophic impacts that climate change is having upon the world’s oceans and that these impacts are cumulative over time and will continue to increase in severity.1 Such studies, together with more journalistic attempts to raise public alarm (e.g., Alanna Mitchell’s cry for help in her book Sea Sick2) have raised awareness but done little to galvanize decision-makers into more resolute action. True, the oceans were finally included in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (unfccc) in the Paris Agreement in 2015, but it seems to take disasters for people to realize that significant change is happening. If earlier storms such as Hurricanes Katrina in 2005 and Sandy in 2012, and Typhoon Haiyan in 2013 were not warning enough, the well-publicized impacts of the 2017 hurricane season on the Caribbean islands and coastal cities and communities across the Gulf and Atlantic coasts of the United States have made it clear that the effects of climate change are becoming ever more obvious. Not only do they represent event-specific challenges to emergency management at local or regional scales, but the extent, severity, and frequency are also challenging from an ocean and coastal governance perspective. In Canada, many coastal communities, including important population centers like Vancouver and Richmond, Toronto, Charlottetown, and Tuktoyaktuk are at risk of serious inundation as a result of rising sea levels, increased storm surge penetration, and high lake levels due to changes in precipitation