The ocean is taking up ever-increasing levels of carbon dioxide and the resulting ocean acidification seriously threatens ocean health. Back to Blue, an initiative of Economist Impact and The Nippon Foundation, calls for governments to implement action plans.

Released towards the end of 2023, Back to Blue’s report Ocean acidification: Time for action brings together experts in support of the development of action plans to tackle ocean acidification. Few such plans currently exist.

“The most developed plans are those for the Pacific Coastal region of North America,” says IMarEST Fellow Ralph Rayner, professorial research fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate and the Environment and co-chair of the IMarEST Operational Oceanography Special Interest Group (SIG).

Leaning on the work done by the International Alliance to combat ocean acidification and the most developed action plans, the Back to Blue report highlights several must-have components of a solid action plan. Those include a strong vision of success, monitoring and research, awareness-building, national and international collaboration, and reducing land-based pollution that places additional stress on marine life and the marine environment.

Plans should also include adaptation and mitigation strategies. For example, on the US Pacific coast, shellfish farms have had to adapt to localised acidification events. “The adaptation is that you design your facility such that you can either deepen or move it in response to a localised acidification event,” Rayner explains.

However, the most critical element any action plan needs to tackle is also the most difficult. “Ultimately, there's only one way of eliminating ocean acidification, and that is radically reducing carbon dioxide emissions,” Rayner says.

Read the full article Taking action on ocean acidification at The Marine Professional.