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viewpoint An Ocean Scientist at COP21 Jean-Pierre Gattuso John Dolan, one of the editors of the Bulletin invited me to provide some insight on the COP21 meeting. What follows is my personal view and is not meant to be a complete report because I had just a few days after the meeting to put the notes below together. COP21 was the 21st Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC). The parties (195 countries plus the European Union) meet every year to reach the fundamental objective of the convention to prevent “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system … within a time frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened, and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner” (United Nations 1992). COP21 took place in Le Bourget, about 10 km North of Paris, from 29 November 2015 to 11 December 2015 (it was extended until 12 December). This was my first COP meeting. I was supposed to attend COP15 which took place in Copenhagen in 2009 but my accreditation was canceled the day before I was going to get there. There were some logistical issues and the organizers decided to limit the number of observers by severely restricting the number of accreditation which is needed to access the socalled Blue (color of the United Nations) Zone. What motivates an ocean scientist to attend a COP meeting in the first place? After all, the purpose of these meetings is to negotiate a legal text, which primarily involves diplomats and government officials. Scientists are needed ahead of the meetings to produce the best science available on climate change and its projected impacts of ecosystems and society. That is the task of all of us and of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which synthesizes the scientific literature in reports published every 6 to 7 yr. Scientists are also needed before and during the COP meetings to distill (US spelling) key messages and ensure that the science is understood and accurately reported by NGOs, and adequately considered by the negotiating teams. It is, however, difficult to evaluate whether scientists really have an impact during the meeting. © 2016 Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography fig. 1. One of the ocean booths managed by Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Scripps Institution of Oceanography/UCSD, Université de Brest/Labex Mer and BIOACID. Photo credit: Jean-Pierre Gattuso (CNRS/UPMC/IDDRI). What about the meeting logistics? A total of 37,878 accreditations were delivered. They were grouped into different categories: parties and observer States (19,385), observer organizations (8,338), and media (2,825). According to Carbon Brief (http://bit.ly/1No9yLe), with 439 delegates, the largest negotiating team was from Morocco (organizer of COP22) and, with just three delegates, the smallest teams were the Syrian Arab Republic and Trinidad and Tobago. Beside the Blue Zone, there was the Climate Generations Area (also called Civil Society or Red Zone) open to everyone, including the public. It hosted more than 80,000 visitors. Finally, a lot of side events took place in the city, but the Climate March planned the day before COP21 started was canceled for security reasons. Having been involved in organizing an ASLO meeting and several meetings of the European Geosciences Union, which involved 2400 to 12,000 participants, I can imagine the major challenge of running a meeting with several tens of thousands of participants. An additional challenge was security as Paris had experienced tragic terrorist attacks just two weeks before COP21 started. In my view, the meeting was very well organized (beware of my possible French bias!) and, although police forces were very visible, as far as I know, security never went in the way in the meeting itself. Several prominent ocean scientists attended COP21. I will not attempt to list them all but let me only mention our own editor of Limnology and Oceanography, Bob Howarth. Several major ocean organizations and research projects were also represented, such as Université de Brest/ Labex Mer, Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Scripps Institution of Oceanography/UCSD and BIOACID, the German program on ocean acidification, which handled a booth both in the blue and civil society zones (Fig. 1). Among other organizations were French CNRS, Global Ocean Forum, IDDRI, IUCN, NASA, NOAA and Tara Expeditions.. How do scientists prepare for a COP meeting? I will tell you about my own experience. My involvement was helped by being an associate scientist at IDDRI, a research foundation founded by Laurence Tubiana, French Ambassador for the international climate negotiations and lead negotiator at COP21. In 2014, my colleague Alexandre Magnan (IDDRI) and I launched The Oceans 2015 Initiative (http:// bit.ly/1M6YiS6) which aimed, together with other initiatives such as those of the Ocean and Climate Platform (Unesco plus 67 organizations; http://ocean-climate.org), at bringing ocean matters at the negotiating table. We gathered a group of about 15 experts to produce scientific papers (Gattuso et al. 2015; Howes et al. 2015; february 2016 1 Reaffirm their commitment to reinforce Ocean resilience by meeting the targets agreed under the UN Sustainable Development Goal #14: “Conserve and Sustainably Use the Oceans, Seas and Marine Resources for Sustainable Development”; with this in mind they express support for the convening of a high-level UN Conference on Oceans and Seas in June 2017 in Fiji to promote implementation and to maintain political momentum to achieve SDG 14. ●● Believe, in keeping with the sense of urgency, that it is high time to promote an Ocean action plan under the UNFCCC, starting in 2016, and shall continue to meet as a group to address the challenges identified in this declaration, inviting the participation and input of other relevant processes and initiatives, within and outside the UN. The signatory countries are: Aruba, Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Fiji, France, Guinea Bissau, Kiribati, Madagascar, Mexico, Monaco, Morocco, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Palau, Senegal, Seychelles, Spain, and Sweden. The text of the declaration can be found here: http:// www.globaloceancommission.org/wp-content/ uploads/Because-the-Ocean-ENG-doublesided-3.pdf Several ocean observers felt that it was critical to have the ocean explicitly mentioned in the Paris Agreement. It was not in the first draft, appeared in the second one and disappeared in the third. This generated great concern for some. I did not share that concern because I thought that having an ambitious agreement with a target temperature increase (the climate change metric used by the treaty) of less than 2°C or 1.5°C was the most important outcome of the negotiations because it would benefit the ocean. Having the ocean explicitly mentioned would be the cherry on the cake. In the end, the cherry was on the cake as the ocean finally appears in the final version which was approved by consensus. The final formulation is: “Noting the importance of ensuring the integrity of all ecosystems, including oceans, and the protection of biodiversity, recognized by some cultures as Mother Earth, when taking action to address climate change….” It took 2 weeks to finally get an approved legal text, with the negotiators spending part of the last three nights in meeting rooms. Some night sessions came to an end at 05:30 h and ●● FIG. 2. Panel at the side event “Oceans Under Pressure” organized by NASA at the US Center. From left to right: Michelle M. Gierach (NASA), Jean-Pierre Gattuso, Alexander MacDonald (NOAA) and Cassandra De Young (FAO). Photo credit: Phil Williamson (PML). Weatherdon et al. 2015), a multilingual policy brief (Magnan et al. 2015), as well as multilingual products for the general public (animated movie and a cartoon). We also organized and were involved in several side events both the Blue Zone, in the Civil Society Zone and in various places in the city. There were about 50 ocean-related side events on the COP21 site (Fig. 2). Many overlapped as they took place during two “ocean days.” These events target negotiators, NGOs, and the general public. It is fair to say that COP21 was by far the COP meeting where the ocean was so prominently visible. Is the outcome worth the effort? The ocean was modestly present at previous COP meetings (Eddebbar et al. 2015). Many of us thought that this was not enough because the ocean is a prime component of the climate system and a victim of climate-related changes. After all, the ocean stores more than 90% of the extra heat generated by CO2 emissions, absorbs 26% of anthropogenic CO2 and receives 100% of the water released by the melting of glaciers and ice caps. These processes lead to ocean warming, acidification and sea level rise. One measure of success is the request to hold “… the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-indus- 2 february 2016 trial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.” The +1.5°C target came as a big surprise because the official target before COP21, which was identified in the Copenhagen accord in 2009, was +2°C. This move was initiated by several coalitions, the Alliance of Small Island States, the Small Island Developing States, and the Least Developed Countries. It was almost entirely based on ocean-related matters because these countries were, with good reasons, gravely concerned with the dramatic impact that increased temperature has on coral reefs and the critical services that they provide and with sea-level rise which could force relocation of inhabitants. The target of +1.5°C was then supported by no less than 114 parties, including the U.S.A. and countries of the European Union, and made its way in the final document. Another measure of success is the launch of the declaration “Because the Ocean” signed by 22 countries. The signatories: ●● Pledge to support the proposal for a Special Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to address comprehensively the ocean/climate nexus. group discussions resumed at 08:00 the same morning. Without doubt, it was a Herculean task to negotiate such a complex document with 196 parties and was an excruciating week for those involved. Some parties and many observers expressed some disappointment with the final text which, they think, was not ambitious enough. I disagree with that because it took 21 yr to have a treaty approved and while the world was heading to an increase in global temperature of 4°C to 5°C, now there is a commitment to limit the increase to 2°C and possibly 1.5°C. That is a great step forward but let us not be naive, the Paris Agreement is just a framework. The implementation of the text is going to be another gigantic challenge as it will require for many, if not all, countries a deep decarbonization of their energy system. In conclusion, I encourage all ocean scientists to continue to produce outstanding and policy-relevant science. It is essential to guide the implementation of the decisions taken in Paris as well as future negotiations that will start in Morocco next year. It is a great experience to attend COP meetings. It gives the great feeling to bring our science in the policy arena and participate to historic international negotiations. References Eddebbar, Y. A., N. D. Gallo, and L. B. Linsmayer. 2015. The oceans and the UN framework convention. Limnol. Oceanogr. Bull. 5: 69–72. doi:10.1002/lob.10059 Gattuso J., and others. 2015. Contrasting futures for ocean and society from different anthropogenic CO2 emissions scenarios. Science 349: aac4722. doi:10.1126/science.aac4722 Howes E. L., F. Joos, C. M. Eakin, and J.-P. Gattuso. 2015. An updated synthesis of the observed and projected impacts of climate change on the chemical, physical and biological processes in the oceans. Front. Mar. Sci. 2: 36. doi:10.3389/fmars.2015.00036 Magnan A. K., R. Billé, S. R. Cooley, R. Kelly, H.-O. Pörtner, C. Turley, and J.-P. Gattuso. 2015. Intertwined ocean and climate: implications for international climate negotiations. IDDRI Policy Brief 04/15:1-4. http://bit.ly/1GiDFGk United Nations. 1992. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, United Nations. Weatherdon L., A. Rogers, R. Sumaila, A. Magnan, and W. W. L. Cheung. 2015. The oceans 2015 initiative, Part II: An updated understanding of the observed and projected impacts of ocean warming and acidification on marine and coastal socioeconomic activities/sectors. IDDRI Study 03/15: 1–44. http://bit.ly/1OnfFPX Jean-Pierre Gattuso, Laboratoire d’Océanographie de Villefranche, CNRS, Université Pierre et Marie Curie and Institute of Sustainable Development and International Relations; [email protected] february 2016 3