Potential synergies and conflicts across the emergent ocean acidification regime complex

Potential synergies and conflicts across the emergent ocean acidification regime complex

Ellycia Harrould-Kolieb

Abstract

Ocean acidification was first recognised as an emergent threat to marine systems in 1999. Over the past two decades scientific understanding of the issue has grown exponentially and it is now well understood that changing ocean chemistry due to the absorption of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO

) emissions may result in devastating consequences for marine biodiversity and the goods and services it provides.

Collective action to address ocean acidification is needed at the international level, and while the international community has agreed through the Sustainable Development Goals to ‘minimize and address the impacts of ocean acidification’ (SDG 14.3), there is a lack of clarity as to how this should be best achieved.

Despite the proliferation of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs), no agreement has been designed with ocean acidification in mind, nor is there any explicit obligation to respond to ocean acidification under any existing agreement. Nevertheless, several regimes have formally recognised the threat of ocean acidification and have initiated activities within their competencies to respond.

Other regimes have also been identified as being of relevance to

1

Climate and Energy College, The University of Melbourne ellycia.harrould@unimelb.edu.au

2 O Hoegh-Guldberg and others, ‘Impacts of 1.5

C Global Warming on Natural and Human Systems’ in V. Masson- Delmotte and others (eds), Impacts of 1.5°C Global Warming on Natural and Human Systems. In: Global Warming of 1.5°C. An IPCC Special Report on the Impacts of Global Warming of 1.5°C above Pre-Industrial Levels and Related Global Greenhouse Gas Emission Pathways, in the Context of Strengthening the Global Response to the Threat of Climate Change, Sustainable Development, and Efforts to Eradicate Poverty (IPCC 2018).

3 K Fennel and DL VanderZwaag, ‘Ocean Acidification: Scientific Surges, Lagging Law and Policy Responses’ in R

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addressing the issue, despite an existing lack of action.

This collection of regimes have been identified as forming an emergent regime complex.

While it is evident that ocean acidification is partially regulated by a collection of regimes, it is unclear how potential synergies or conflicts could enhance or weaken coherence across this regime complex. Accordingly, this paper seeks to better understand the nature of the ocean acidification regime complex by identifying potential areas of conflict and synergy between participating regimes.

Ellycia Harrould-Kolieb

Ellycia has a background in conservation biology and international environmental governance with expertise in international policy and law relating to the ocean, biodiversity and climate change. For more than a decade she has focused on issues relating to the ocean-climate nexus. Ellycia has a PhD from the School of Geography at the University of Melbourne in which she explored novel ways for addressing ocean acidification under existing multilateral environmental agreements. Ellycia is currently a Research Fellow at the Climate and Energy College of the University of Melbourne. She was previously the Marine Scientist on the Climate Change and Clean Energy Campaign at Oceana – the world’s largest marine conservation organisation. Ellycia has also sat on the Board of the Victorian branch of The Wilderness Society and is an alumna of the Academy of the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute at the University of Melbourne. Ellycia currently resides in Melbourne, Australia, with her partner and their two young sons.

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Nordquist, John Norton Moore and Ronán Long (eds), The Marine Environment and United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 14 (Brill | Nijhoff 2018); Yangmay Downing, ‘Ocean Acidification and Protection under International Law from Negative Effects: A Burning Issue amongst a Sea of Regimes’ (2013) 2 Cambridge J. Int’l &

Comp. L. 242; Rakhyun E Kim, ‘Is a New Multilateral Environmental Agreement on Ocean Acidification Necessary?’

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