by On 21 May, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, in Hamburg, Germany, Control that greenhouse gas that they are marine pollutants and that nations must take action to “reduce, control and prevent” their effects. The tribunal, sometimes called the Ocean Court, was responding to a request from a consortium of small island nations that are disappearing under rising seas.
The United States is not one of the 169 parties to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, but adheres to its principles. And while the tribunal’s unanimous ruling is not legally binding, it will have an impact on national and global court cases now being brought against the fossil fuel industry and its well-funded resistance to a clean, renewable energy future. carbon.
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Donald Trump offered himself up to that resistance in April when she asked for a billion dollar donation from oil executives by promising, if re-elected, to reverse President Biden’s clean energy rules. Big Oil could certainly pay the bribe. A billion dollars is about 1% of the profits ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP brought in last year under Biden’s moderate climate policies.
That’s why the tribunal’s ruling is not enough to stop or even slow the sea’s approach to a literal boiling point.
The impact of climate is surpassed by all other insults to the marine environment, including industrial overfishing and oil, chemical and plastic pollution. Adding to the danger, unfettered floodplain development is destroying coastal habitat in places like Jakarta, Indonesia; Lagos, Nigeria; Houston; and Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis recently passed legislation that banned any mention of climate change from state agencies.
It is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration above normal hurricane activity warning this year, predicting 17-25 named storms (compared to an average of 14), with four to seven major hurricanes. The culprit is near-record high temperatures in the Atlantic, combined with a cooling La Niña phase in the Pacific. (Fun fact, water temperatures in recent La Niña years have been warmer than recent El Niño years, according to NOAA.) And, of course, hurricane damage will only be increased by rising levels the warming of the seas linked to seawater (H2O expands when heated – boil a kettle of tea if you don’t believe me), and the melting of sea ice and glaciers.
Scientific reviews have found that the duration of ocean heat waves has increased by more than 50% since 1925. By 2014, 50% of the ocean was affected, and last year, more than 90% of the ocean hit heat wave temperatures internal, including one. a day when the temperature of the waters off the Florida Keys measured 101 degrees. The average world sea surface temperatures hit a record of nearly 70 degrees Fahrenheit on one day last year, the highest level ever recorded, in stark contrast to an average of 61 degrees throughout the 20th century.
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This should come as no surprise given that 90% of the heat generated by burning fossil fuels — along with about a third of the carbon dioxide — is absorbed by the ocean. Carbon dioxide, buffered into carbonic acid, increases acidity in ocean water, which is bad news for corals, clams and other shell-forming creatures. Also, there is less dissolved oxygen in warmer and more acidic oceans, increasing hundreds of “dead zones” in coastal waters, as tracked by the United Nations.
Not worried yet? In 1997-98 I reported on the world’s first ever coral bleaching event, caused by too warm water and affecting 16% of all coral reefs. In April, scientists reported the fourth and largest global bleaching to date, now affecting more than 54% of the world’s coral reefs and growth of 1% per week.
Coral bleaching is similar to but more extensive than the kelp forest dieback along the coasts of South Australia and California. Ninety-five percent of Northern California’s kelp forest has been displaced by the kelp “tops” from the West Coast marine heat wave of 2014, ’15 and ’16, when water temperatures averaged 7 degrees above above the normal level. A study by Oregon State University found that migrating green whales are losing weight and energy due to the destruction of kelp forests because kelp helps generate the phytoplankton that the whales eat.
Even if most of the effects of ocean climate remain out of sight and, therefore, out of mind, I have met too many people who have been directly affected by these changes — fishermen, surfers, coastal homeowners, beach town shoppers — without asking why the law of the It wasn’t a big deal to rule the Marine Tribunal of Inquiry around our blue planet. Likewise, why is climate change, which is causing hotter, wetter, worse weather in nation after country, not a major issue in the 2024 US election?
It might happen if this summer’s hurricane takes out Miami, Tampa, Charleston or Houston, or if shrimp start cooking in the sea before being harvested. The tribunal’s ruling could chill the oceans, if only there were a way or a will to enforce it.
David Helvarg is executive director of Blue Frontier, an ocean conservation group, and co-host of “Rising Tide: The Ocean Podcast.”
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
