Integrated and Inclusive Ocean Governance is Essential to Tackling Climate Change

By One Ocean Hub Author Mitchell Lennan

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Key Messages:

• COP26 should recognize the need to systematically integrate the ocean in future climate mitigation and adaptation action (notably nature-based solutions), because integrated and inclusive ocean governance is essential to tackling climate change across scales.

• COP26 is an opportunity for governments to prioritize policy coherence at the nexus between the ocean, climate change, biodiversity and human rights, so that the nexus can then be addressed across all relevant international processes.

• Climate finance should target transdisciplinary research on the nexus of climate change, ocean, biodiversity and human rights as a pre-condition for transformativescience/policy engagements, to develop inclusive and resilient climate responses to the benefit of the most vulnerable.

• COP26 should underscore the role of the human rights-based and ecosystem-based approach to ensure co-benefits for the protection of marine biodiversity, climate change adaptation and mitigation, and multiple Sustainable Development Goals.