The Oceans and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change

Only a few months remain until delegates from 196 countries convene in Paris, France, to negotiate and sign a globally binding agreement on climate change mitigation and adaptation. The “Paris Summit” is a major milestone in a longterm international negotiations effort that has been moving at a very slow pace, lagging far behind the fast advance of geophysical changes in the earth system. Despite its high relevance to climate change mitigation and adaptation, the ocean has been widely left out of the UN climate policy negotiations, but new opportunities are arising to change this course. In this article, we discuss the relevance of the ocean as a major climate regulator to the UN climate discussions, and share a few lessons learned from early career ocean scientists involved in bridging this gap.