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"Foreword" [2012] ELECD 1088; in Warner, Robin; Schofield, Clive (eds), "Climate Change and the Oceans" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012) xvii

Book Title: Climate Change and the Oceans

Editor(s): Warner, Robin; Schofield, Clive

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848448186

Section Title: Foreword

Number of pages: 2

Extract:

Foreword
Climate change is, undoubtedly, one of the greatest challenges of our
time. Broad consensus has emerged in the global scientific community that
global warming, occasioned by excess greenhouse gases in the atmosphere
resulting from human activities, poses serious threats to the very survival
of our planetary system, not least our oceans. Paradoxically, however, it is
also now recognized that the oceans provide a partial solution to the global
climate change problem as a result of their role in the carbon cycle, ocean
fertilization to mitigate impacts of climate change, providing alternative
renewable energy sources, and as a reservoir for carbon sequestration and
storage. These mitigation opportunities are likely to have significant nega-
tive consequences unless properly managed.
At the broader oceans governance level, the current rules of inter-
national law, codified largely in the 1982 United Nations Convention on
the Law of the Sea, assign oceans governance responsibilities to States and
the international community as a whole, on the basis of well defined mari-
time zones of jurisdiction. However, the specific rules laid down for the
determination of maritime jurisdictional space did not take into account
the climate change phenomenon and its likely impact on oceans jurisdic-
tions, particularly in terms of the determination of baselines, the demarca-
tion of maritime boundaries and in extreme situations, the inundation or
total disappearance of islands.
The strong nexus between climate change impacts on the oceans and the
mitigation role the oceans can play in the global response to the climate
change ...