Editing IPCC:AR6/SROCC/Chapter-5 (section)

=== 5.5.3 Governance Across All Scales ===

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There are many global, regional, national and local governance structures with interests in climate-driven ocean warming, acidification, deoxygenation and SLR, and their impacts on marine ecosystems and dependent communities (Galland et al., 2012 <sup>[[#fn:r2428|2428]]</sup> ; Stephens, 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r2429|2429]]</sup> ; Fennel and VanderZwaag, 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r2430|2430]]</sup> ; Diamond, 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r2431|2431]]</sup> ). The legal, policy and institutional response is therefore shared by many institutions developed for a number of distinct but inter-related fields, including governance regimes for ocean systems, climate change, marine environment, fisheries and the environment generally. A changing ocean poses several scale-related challenges for these governance institutions and processes, arising from:

* The global and transboundary scales of the major changes to ocean properties (temperature, circulation, oxygen loss, acidification, etc.), with variability in their local expression;
* The regional scales of changes in ecosystem services following from the changes in ocean properties (including services provided to humans living far from the coasts);
* The global scales of land-based drivers of those changes (both greenhouse gas emissions and changes in ecosystems services), which often motivate policy responses (primarily at the national level) and behavioural responses (primarily at the community level);
* The scale dependent need for coordinated responses by the different governance structures, to ensure their overall effectiveness (see also Chapter 1)

For all of these challenges, the scales of the climate-related issues may be poorly matched to the scales of most governance institutions and processes, making effective responses or proactive initiatives difficult. Sections 5.2 to 5.4 provide evidence, through case histories and thematic overviews, that illustrates these four types of challenges. In some cases, more than one type of challenge is illustrated in a single example, such as when a change in an amount or availability of an ecosystem service is discussed in the context of factors influencing the vulnerability of socio-ecological systems to climate change (Sections 5.2., 5.3 and 5.4).

Existing ocean governance structures for the ocean already face multi-dimensional challenges because of climate change, and this trend of increasing complexity will continue (Galaz et al., 2012 <sup>[[#fn:r2432|2432]]</sup> ). Current international governance regimes and structures for fisheries and the ocean environment do not yet adequately address the issues of ocean warming, acidification and deoxygenation (Oral, 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r2433|2433]]</sup> ); Box 5.6). At the time of the initial development and adoption of these legal and governance regimes, minimal attention was given to climate change and the effects of carbon dioxide emissions on the ocean, with associated impacts on the interacting physical, chemical, biological properties of the ecosystems, and the resulting risks and vulnerabilities of dependent communities and economic sectors. In particular, the governance of ocean ABNJ is a major challenge (Levin and Le Bris, 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r2434|2434]]</sup> ); the collaborative structures and mechanisms for environmental assessment in ABNJ need further development (Warner, 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r2435|2435]]</sup> ) ( ''high confidence'' ). Negotiations are currently ongoing regarding a new international agreement for marine biodiversity of ABNJ (UNEP, 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r2436|2436]]</sup> ).

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'''Table 5.9:''' Ocean Governance and Climate Change: Major Issues

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{| class="wikitable"
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| Area of Governance
| Major Legal Instruments
| Major Issues and Actions
|-
| Marine Environment Generally
| UNCLOS, CBD, CITES, WHC, MARPOL and other IMO legal instruments, regional seas conventions and other legal instruments
| UNCLOS imposes obligations on state parties to take action to combat the main sources of ocean pollution. Tools and techniques in UNCLOS may need adjustment in response to the emerging challenges created by ocean climate change (Redgwell, 2012). However, success of the umbrella regulatory framework of UNCLOS depends heavily on the further development, modification and implementation of detailed regulations by relevant international, regional and national institutions (Karim, 2015).
The London Protocol to the London Convention was amended in 2006 to address the issue of carbon dioxide storage processes for sequestration. Two subsequent amendments concern sharing transboundary sub-seabed geological formations for sequestration projects, and ocean fertilisation and other marine geoengineering. One of these new amendments prohibits ocean fertilisation except for research purposes (Dixon et al., 2014).

The issue of ocean acidification has been considered within the framework of the OSPAR Convention, the CCAMLR Convention (Herr et al., 2014), and the CBD (CBD,2014) ; this issue is discussed further in Box 5.6.

The CBD has also considered regulatory issues relating to ocean fertilisation and other (marine) geoengineering (Williamson and Bodle, 2016). In 2018, the CBD adopted ''Voluntary Guidelines for the Design and Effective Implementation of Ecosystem-Based Approaches to Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction'' . However, even if Parties to the Convention choose to adopt the voluntary guidelines, there is no mechanism to implement them beyond their exclusive economic zones in the water column and their extended continental shelves (if recognised) in the seabed

Most of the 29 world heritage listed coral reefs are facing severe heat stress (Heron, 2017) and the WHC may play a role for coral reef protection.

|-
| Climate Change
| UNFCCC, Paris Agreement, MARPOL Convention and other legal instruments
| Existing international legal instruments do not adequately address climate change challenges for the open ocean and coastal seas (Galland et al., 2012; Redgwell, 2012; Herr et al., 2014; Magnan et al., 2016; Gallo et al., 2017; Heron, 2017). Nevertheless, ocean and coastal areas will benefit from the overall UNFCCC goal for preventing dangerous interference with the climate system. A study of the 161 national pledges for climate change mitigation and adaptation (NDCs) identified ‘gaps between scientific [understanding] and government attention, including on ocean deoxygenation, which is barely mentioned’ (Gallo et al., 2017).
In 2011, the MARPOL convention was amended to include technical and operational measures for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from ships. However, the effectiveness of these provisions depends on the national implementation by flag, port and coastal states, with no international enforcement authority (Karim, 2015).

|-
| Fisheries
| UNCLOS, UN Fish Stocks Agreement, FAO Compliance Agreement,
FAO PSMA, Regional Fisheries Agreements and other legal instruments

| The impact of climate change on marine fisheries is expected to be very significant (Sections 5.3, 5.4) (Barange et al. 2018; FAO, 2019), with adverse impacts on food security, livelihood and national development in many coastal countries; least developed countries seem particularly vulnerable (Blasiak et al., 2017). Regional fisheries management systems need to address these emerging challenges (Brooks et al., 2013). The ecological and socioecological criteria and standards for performance can be set at regional levels where Regional Fisheries Management Organizations have been established, but their effectiveness is variable depending on the characteristics of regulatory instruments and other factors (Ojea et al., 2017). The current international regulatory framework for fisheries management has a responsiveness gap, since it does not fully incorporate issues related to the fluctuating and changing distribution of fisheries (Pentz and Klenk, 2017; Pinsky et al., 2018).
However, some regional fisheries management organisations (RFMOs) have initiated processes to improve the equity of sharing fishery resources affected by climate change (Aqorau et al., 2018). A climate-informed ecosystem-based fisheries governance approach has been suggested for enhancing climate change resilience of marine fisheries in the developing world (Heenan et al., 2015), but robust and effective management, policy, legislation and planning based on flexibility and scientific understanding will be required for coastal fisheries (Gourlie et al., 2017). The existing failing condition of many stocks, coupled with maladaptive responses to climate change, may create serious challenges for the sustainability of global fisheries; improved fisheries governance can offset some of these challenges (Gaines et al., 2018).

The fisheries agreements and the provisions in UNCLOS have helped RFMOs to increase the sustainability of fisheries on stocks in or migrating through international waters, and equity of access to them. Because the distribution of many stocks changes with changes in physical oceanic conditions (particularly temperature and current regimes), many of the measures and access arrangements negotiated and adopted by the RFMOs have reduced effectiveness in a changing climate. New arrangements have been difficult to negotiate, in part because of concerns that the distributions and productivities will continue to change as climate change continues to drive changes on ocean conditions (Blasiak et al., 2017; Ojea et al., 2017; Pentz and Klenk, 2017; Aqorau et al., 2018; Pinsky et al., 2018).

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Acronyms and organisations: CBD, Convention on Biological Diversity; CCAMLR, Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources; CITES, Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora; IMO: International Maritime Organization; London Convention: Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter; London Protocol: 1996 Protocol to the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter; MARPOL Convention: International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships; NDCs: Nationally Determined Contributions; OSPAR Convention: Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic; UN Fish Stocks Agreement: The Agreement for the Implementation of the Provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982 relating to the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks; UNCLOS: United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea; UNFCCC: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change; WHC, World Heritage Convention: Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage; FAO Compliance Agreement: The Agreement to Promote Compliance with International Conservation and Management Measures by Fishing Vessels on the High Seas; FAO PSMA: The Agreement on Port State Measures

The following changes in governance may improve the ability of governance institutions and processes to address the challenges identified above:

* Cooperation on regional and global scales through various types of agreements of varying degrees of formality for States and other participants in governance
* Increasing the voice and role in decision making for non-governmental participants such as Indigenous peoples, social and labour organisations
* Increasing the horizontal integration of decision making across industry and societal sectors, under processes such as ‘integrated management’ and ‘marine spatial planning’
* Increasing resource mobilisation at the community scale to enable communities to experiment and innovate to address the challenges, and then to share their experiences with other communities and build cooperative approaches to promote strategies with successful outcomes

These governance innovation strategies have the potential to increase the ability of the governance institutions and processes to successfully respond to all four types of scale-related challenges listed earlier. However, any of them also have the potential to fail to address their intended concerns effectively if implemented inappropriately, or to create new challenges as the initial priorities are addressed. In some countries, lack of capacity of the existing governance institutions, lack of access to basic facilities, insufficient income diversification and illiteracy are major hindrance for ocean governance in a changing climate (Bennett et al., 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r2437|2437]]</sup> ; Salik et al., 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r2438|2438]]</sup> ; Weng et al., 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r2439|2439]]</sup> ; Karim and Uddin, 2019 <sup>[[#fn:r2440|2440]]</sup> ; Sarkodie and Strezov, 2019 <sup>[[#fn:r2441|2441]]</sup> ) ( ''high confidence'' )

Additional considerations identified by recent studies of ocean related mitigation and adaptation include the need for: early warning and precautionary management; multi-level and multi-sectoral governance responses; holistic, integrated and flexible management systems; integration of scientific and local knowledge as well as natural, social and economic investigation; identification and incorporation of a set of social indicators and checklists; adaptive governance; and incorporation of climate change effects in marine spatial planning (Hiwasaki et al., 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r2470|2470]]</sup> ; Kettle et al., 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r2471|2471]]</sup> ; Hernández-Delgado, 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r2472|2472]]</sup> ; Himes-Cornell and Kasperski, 2015a <sup>[[#fn:r2473|2473]]</sup> ; Pittman et al., 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r2474|2474]]</sup> ; Colburn et al., 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r2475|2475]]</sup> ; Creighton et al., 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r2476|2476]]</sup> ; Hobday et al., 2016a <sup>[[#fn:r2477|2477]]</sup> ; Audefroy and Sánchez, 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r2478|2478]]</sup> ; Gissi et al., 2019 <sup>[[#fn:r2479|2479]]</sup> ; Tuda et al., 2019 <sup>[[#fn:r2480|2480]]</sup> ). Diverse adaptations of governance are being tried, and some are producing promising results (Sections 5.2, 5.3 and 5.4). However, rigorous further evaluation is needed regarding the effectiveness of these adaptations in achieving their goals in addressing specific governance challenges. Robust conclusions on the effectiveness of specific types of governance adaptations in various socioecological contexts would require a targeted assessment of ocean (and terrestrial) governance in a changing climate, possible as a key part of AR6.

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