Oceanography | December 2020
Looking Back into the Future: Ocean Sciences Post 2030
KIEL, DECEMBER 2030
FROM THE PRESIDENT
A decade ago, ocean scientists looked with hope to the future.
In early 2021, we launched the UN Decade of Ocean Science for
Sustainable Development with great anticipation. It was hailed
as the beginning of a change in direction that would enrich the
spectrum of ocean sciences by adding new initiatives that we
described then as transformative ocean science solutions for sus-
tainable development, connecting people and our ocean.
Since the beginning of this century, it had been clear to
experts and world leaders that business as usual was leading to a
decline in ocean health. There was concern that ocean pollution,
resource extraction, and climate change would compromise criti-
cal ocean ecosystem services important to humanity.1 Under rap-
idly increasing pressures, not only the ocean, but in fact most of
the plant’s ecosystems, possibly no longer had the ability to cope
or rebound. Significant human-induced changes—specifically
those related to climate change2—were expected to threaten the
future of humanity by the end of the twenty-first century.
In a landmark year, 2015, world leaders came together, and in
the spirit of global cooperation, proclaimed four global frame-
works for action: the Paris Agreement on climate change,3 the
Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction,4 the New Urban
Agenda,5 and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.6
The latter document was entitled “Transforming Our World:
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.” This agenda
was seen as a plan of action for people, the planet, and prosper-
ity. All countries and all stakeholders, acting collaboratively, were
called upon to implement this ambitious plan. The signatories
were determined to take the bold and transformative steps that
were seen as urgently needed to shift the world onto a sustainable
and resilient path. They pledged that no one would be left behind.
Against this backdrop of global policy, the ocean commu-
nity posed the question: How can our ocean science community
work together with society to move from the “ocean we had” to
the “ocean we wanted”? And, what is the “science we need” to
get to the “ocean we want”?7 We wanted an ocean science that:
• Used the 2030 Agenda as a central framework to identify
and address the most pressing societal questions related to
Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)14 and related SDGs
• Was co-designed and co-delivered in a multi-stakeholder
environment to be relevant and responsive across the entire
value chain, from knowledge generation to applications and
services to use of science for solutions
• Was solutions-focused and contributed to a wide variety of
potential solutions that included policy, decision-making,
management and governance frameworks, as well as technol-
ogy development and innovation
• Where needed, was big, audacious, forward-looking, and
spanned geographies
• Reached across disciplines and actively integrated natural and
social science disciplines
• Embraced local and indigenous knowledge as a key knowl-
edge source
• Was transformative because of who was doing it or where it
was being done, including in both less developed and devel-
oped countries
• Strove for generational, gender, and geographic diversity in
all their manifestations
• Was communicated in forms that could be widely understood
across society and that triggered excitement about the ocean
and behavioral change
• Was shared openly and available for re-use
Moreover, 10 specific Ocean Decade Challenges were formu-
lated to guide the development of large, global programs to sup-
port these goals and ambitions (Box 1; IOC, 2020).
As the final preparations for the launch of the Ocean Decade
were under way, the coronavirus raged through the world and
additional challenges emerged. The pandemic reminded us that
the 2030 Agenda documents lacked emphasis on resilience, and
science was missing in the SDGs. I am happy to report that the
new goals focused on knowledge generation (science included).
However, we were possibly too optimistic about what could be
done in 10 years regarding capacity building and global equal-
ity. We achieved a lot, but there is more to do. Now, in the 2030s,
ocean literacy has improved significantly and global learning
and problem solving have become the norm. Ocean pollution is
better understood, but we simply did not manage to remove all
the sources. Plastics in the environment and the high levels of
CO2 remain intractable problems globally.
During the hardships of the 2020 pandemic, we rapidly
learned that virtual meetings could be easy and productive. I
vividly remember discussions about the pros and cons of vir-
tual Ocean Sciences Meetings. The coronavirus likely acceler-
ated many of the exciting innovations that are now available for
1 https://www.some.ox.ac.uk/research/global-ocean-commission/; 2 https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc/; 3 https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/english_paris_
agreement.pdf; 4 https://www.undrr.org/implementing-sendai-framework/what-sendai-framework; 5 https://habitat3.org/the-new-urban-agenda/;
6 https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld; 7 https://www.oceandecade.org/