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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
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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-
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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
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