Climate change is not just threat to land - our seas are at risk too

Published on Monday 22 October 2007 01:04

MOST people today understand how climate change will affect the way we live in future, and realise the importance of taking steps to combat the threat from greenhouse gases.

People are recycling more, insulating their homes and switching off lights, and more farmers are being rewarded for environment-friendly stewardship of the land.

Scotland boasts many magnificent seascapes and dramatic coastlines, havens for an abundance of wildlife and a magnet for the many visitors who help to boost the economy and job opportunities.

I am in Scotland this week to support efforts to secure international agreement to conserve important but endangered visitors to our shores - migratory birds of prey including eagles, falcons and osprey. The agreement would address the future problems that climate change will bring to these birds, and it has the potential to help us in our aim to halt biodiversity loss.

At the moment, though, we do much more to protect our immediate natural environment on land than we do to safeguard an equally important factor in our future wellbeing - the marine environment.

Our seas play a vital role in shaping and regulating our climate, but are often overlooked in the wider climate change debate. We've probably thought more about the rainforests than about the oceans.

UK waters contain up to half of the UK's total biodiversity, estimated at about 44,000 species. Marine biodiversity is subject to a variety of impacts, natural and man-made. Damage to marine life, habitats and ecosystems has serious knock-on effects for the rest of us. We derive benefits from the sea, not just from fishing but from tourism and recreation too.

A recent report highlighted just how far climate change has already affected Britain's marine environment, and warned of what might happen in the future.

The Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership suggests that we are seeing big changes, driven in part by climate change, affecting the amount, variety and distribution of species at all levels of the marine ecosystem, from plankton to fish and seabirds.

Cold-water species of plankton and fish are retreating north around the UK, while warmer-water southern species are increasing.

We must be able to respond to this changing environment. We need to do much more to raise our level of understanding of climate change impacts on marine life and habitats, and take radical measures to protect them.

My department, for example, has funded research into the impact of ocean acidification, caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere absorbed at the sea surface. This will have potentially profound impacts on marine life as well as reducing the ability of the oceans to act as "sinks" for .

I believe we need to take a joined-up, strategic approach across the whole UK, working with all devolved administrations to make sure that we get it right and secure clean, healthy, safe and productive seas for future generations. The UK Marine Bill, expected in draft in early 2008, is intended to take us a significant step in that direction.

We must also make sure that we protect the marine environment, as well as securing our social and economic needs, with a modern, strategic marine planning system, better protection for marine biodiversity and more effective management of fisheries and other important marine activities.

We must ensure that we manage what we do in the marine environment in a way that protects important biodiversity and secures maximum benefits from it. We have to halt the deterioration and promote recovery where we can.

We have 182 marine protected areas in UK inshore waters, which cover almost two million hectares, but current measures are not enough to help us achieve our aims. We need a new network of protected areas around the UK to conserve rare, threatened and native species and habitats.

The UK is showing real leadership on climate change and on protecting the marine environment, not just domestically but globally, recognising that the two are closely linked.

At the United Nations conference in Bali in December, we will be pressing for a new, comprehensive agreement on climate change post Kyoto. We will be speaking from strength, having published the UK's Climate Change Bill, the first of its kind in the world to set legally binding targets for the reduction of emissions.

The relationship between climate change and our seas and oceans is a vital one. It will feature increasingly in our thinking as we develop our long-awaited UK Marine Bill.

• Joan Ruddock is the UK climate change and biodiversity minister.