The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the leading international body for assessing the science related to climate change. It provides policymakers with regular assessments of the scientific basis of human-induced climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for adaptation and mitigation. This IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate is the most comprehensive and up-to-date assessment of the observed and projected changes to the ocean and cryosphere and their associated impacts and risks, with a focus on resilience, risk management response options, and adaptation measures, considering both their potential and limitations. It brings together knowledge on physical and biogeochemical changes, the interplay with ecosystem changes, and the implications for human communities. It serves policymakers, decision makers, stakeholders, and all interested parties with unbiased, up-to-date, policy-relevant information. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

This report explores the potential for mitigating the impacts of climate change by improved management and protection of marine ecosystems and especially the vegetated coastal habitat, or blue carbon sinks. The objective of this report is to highlight the critical role of the oceans and ocean ecosystems in maintaining our climate and in assisting policy makers to mainstream an oceans agenda into national and international climate change initiatives. While emissions' reductions are currently at the centre of the climate change discussions, the critical role of the oceans and ocean ecosystems has been vastly overlooked.

The trans-disciplinary thematic areas of oceans management and policy require stocktaking of the state of knowledge on ecosystem services being derived from coastal and marine areas. Recently adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) especially Goals 14 and 15 explicitly focus on this. This Handbook brings together a carefully chosen set of world-class contributions from ecology, economics, and other development science and attempts to provide policy relevant scientific information on ecosystem services from marine and coastal ecosystems, nuances of economic valuation, relevant legal and sociological response policies for effective management of marine areas for enhanced human well being. The contributors focus on the possible nexus of science-society and science-policy with the objective of informing on decision makers of the governmental agencies, business and industry and civil society in general with respect to sustainable management of Oceans.

As a response to the climate crisis and its effect on marine ecosystems and coastal populations, this book proposes concrete science driven solutions at establishing transformation pathways towards Sustainable Blue Growth, that are supported by technically and socially innovative innovations. This book proposes investment options and management solutions that have the potential of making our seas and oceans resilient to crises- climate, financial, health- by laying the foundations for a green/blue, circular economy that is anchored in science driven solutions and geared toward public well-being. Now is the time to usher in systemic economic change and the good news is that we have our blueprint: it’s the combination of UN Agenda 2030 (17 SDG) and European Commission’s European Green Deal! There is no doubt that the Earth’s survival will depend on the protection and sustainable management of our seas and oceans and the resources they provide. This is recognized by the Joint Communication on International Ocean Governance, which is an integral part of the EU’s response to the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and in particular to the targets set out by Sustainable Development Goal 14 (SDG 14) to “conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources”. The analytical framework and science-driven concrete management solutions proposed in this book can accelerate the transition to a sustainable management of our seas and oceans, by turning the current challenges into opportunities for sustainable economic growth which is both environmentally resilient and leaves no one behind.

This book examines the nexus of cities and oceans and the interrelations between the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 11 and 14, just after the first two critical years following the milestone year of hope in 2015. It advocates for actions both for sustainable cities, the largest interconnected and only human ecosystem, and for the global ocean that is the largest physical ecosystem. Cutting-edge concepts and actions are presented by and for cities and oceans, following the global engagements during the years 2015-2017. In the era of global geopolitics, cities offer major democratic spaces between the micro-regulations of the local communities and the governance of the global commons. The role of education, trust, and citizen empowerment cannot be stressed enough. This book offers an evidence-based, holistic and integrated view of key urban and ocean sustainability issues at the horizon of 2030 and of 2050. The chapters cover the most prominent issues at the heart of the matter, and highlight systemic multi-stakeholder eco-responses towards sustainability with economic, social, environmental dimensions, including political and cultural aspects. This book offers a full exploration of cities and seas with an emphasis on vigorous paradigm shifts, redesigning human systems, and reconciling them with nature. Building on robust evidence, and transformational cases, it provides structured advice for world leaders, stakeholders and scholars.

This book presents a solutions based approach to reducing and removing CO2 from the atmosphere transforming it into solid (crystalline) CaCO3 through the ability of marine organisms such as molluscs, crustacea, corals, and coccolithophore algae. The overwhelming advantage of this approach is that it promises enhanced climate mitigation in comparison to planting forests, industrial/engineering carbon capture and storage process. It also provides a sustainable food resource. Furthermore, it would improve the ocean's biodiversity at the same time as the excess atmospheric CO2 released by our use of fossil fuels is returned to the place it belongs - as a present day fossil, safely out of the atmosphere to the distant future. If the level of finance and global effort that are readily foreseen for forest management and flue gas treatments were applied to expansion of global shellfish cultivation, curative amounts of carbon dioxide could be permanently removed from the atmosphere within a few decades. The concept presented in this book could have a profound influence on the life of the planet.