Abstract
Ocean acidification (OA) is a global problem with profoundly negative environmental, social and economic consequences. From a governance perspective, there is a need to ensure a coordinated effort to directly address it. This study reviews 90 legislative documents from 17 countries from the European Economic Area (EEA) and the UK that primarily border the sea. The primary finding from this study is that the European national policies and legislation addressing OA is at best uncoordinated. Although OA is acknowledged at the higher levels of governance, its status as an environmental challenge is greatly diluted at the European Union Member State level. As a notable exception within the EEA, Norway seems to have a proactive approach towards legislative frameworks and research aimed towards further understanding OA. On the other hand, there was a complete lack of, or inadequate reporting in the Marine Strategy Framework Directive by the majority of the EU Member States, with the exception of Italy and the Netherlands. We argue that the problems associated with OA and the solutions needed to address it are unique and cannot be bundled together with traditional climate change responses and measures. Therefore, European OA-related policy and legislation must reflect this and tailor their actions to mitigate OA to safeguard marine ecosystems and societies. A stronger and more coordinated approach is needed to build environmental, economic and social resilience of the observed and anticipated changes to the coastal marine systems.
Highlights
Around the end of the 18th century, with the design of the steam engine by James Watt, the geological age of the Anthropocene started [1,2]
The rate of Ocean Acidification (OA) is two magnitudes faster than any previous event in the last 20 million years [7], and is currently at levels last seen at the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM, ~56 million years ago) during which a massive CO2 injection was dissolved in the ocean [8]
The analysis shows that the policies of European coastal states listed in (Table 4) are poorly or at most moderately engaging with respect to the OA problem
Summary
Around the end of the 18th century, with the design of the steam engine by James Watt, the geological age of the Anthropocene started [1,2]. The rate of OA is two magnitudes faster than any previous event in the last 20 million years [7], and is currently at levels last seen at the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM, ~56 million years ago) during which a massive CO2 injection was dissolved in the ocean [8]. This event led to major turnovers of marine species, with mass extinctions of some species and population growth in others [9]. It took tens of thousands of years afterwards for the ocean to recover [10]
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