Two decades on and ocean recognition is rising
20th June 2012
PML's Dr
Carol Turley is on the road to Rio with a message for world leaders
to keep the ocean and the serious issues it faces at the top of the
agenda at an international conference later this month.
Representing a number of key national and international scientific
projects and supported by an impressive group of reputable global
organisations, Dr Turley is confident the groundswell of support
for the messages she will deliver shows a growing concern for the
ocean in the face of three recently revealed stressors – ocean
warming, acidification and deoxygenation.
World leaders and thousands of other
participants from governments, the private sector, NGOs and other
groups will be meeting in Rio de Janeiro 20-22 June, in an
endeavour to agree ways to reduce poverty, advance social equity
and ensure environmental protection as the population of our
already crowded planet hurtles towards 9 billion.
The United Nations Conference on Sustainable
Development (UNCSD) will mark the twentieth anniversary of the UN
Conference on Environment and Development – the Earth (Rio) Summit
of 1992 – when countries adopted Agenda 21, a blueprint that has
crafted much global thinking and actions bringing economics,
environment, and society together for a sustainable future.
Despite covering three-quarters of our planet,
containing 96% of its living space, providing almost half of the
oxygen in the atmosphere and feeding billions of people worldwide,
the ocean has remained a poor relation since the Earth Summit two
decades ago, but now the tide is turning and the recognition of the
importance of the ocean is rising. Hopes are high amongst a wide
range of stakeholders that the ocean will have a high priority at
Rio+20 deserving of its key role in maintaining life on Earth.
Set against a backdrop of pollution,
over-exploitation of ocean resources such as fisheries, coastal
development and other ‘traditional’ threats to ocean sustainability
are the relative newcomers - the three stressors of ocean warming,
acidification and deoxygenation, all related to the growing amounts
of carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere from our
industries, ultimately to end up in and impact our seas and the
life they sustain.
Dr Carol Turley has spent much of the last
decade bringing these issues to the attention of policy makers and
a wider stakeholder community, she will be at Rio+20 to raise the
profile even higher. Amongst the events she has been invited to
speak at are a number of pre-conference ‘side-events’- briefing
sessions that get to the heart of issues, inform politicians and
their advisers, and suggest actions to overcome any challenges.
Beginning as scientifically interesting
phenomena the three CO2 related stressors have emerged
as key issues facing the ocean and its ability to provide the goods
and services needed by the human race and the wider environment.
Addressing the future of a ‘hot, sour and breathless’ ocean is now
a matter of great urgency. As well as speaking at a wide range of
events at Rio+20 Dr Turley will be working with eminent colleagues
from across the globe in efforts to ensure the ocean and its plight
is not overlooked:
“Two decades ago these three stressors
were largely unrecognised at The Earth Summit, but since that time
their importance for the environment and human society has
gradually become apparent. It is through targeted research that
this realisation has become widespread in scientific circles, now
the job is to make sure the policy makers base their decisions for
the future of the ocean and the planet on this sound science. If we
humans keep up our current behaviour we now know that there will be
potentially serious impacts on the ocean and its ability to
continue to sustain the variety of life on Earth we see today. Any
changes will have consequences for the Earth’s human population
too. It is not too late for us to do something about these
potential threats and I have high hopes that we can get the science
across during these meetings in Rio, so that the policies and
recommendations that come out of the conference take the importance
of the ocean into consideration.”