Plan and understand and share different approaches
A pressing action required to face the negative disruptions associated
with climate change is to establish what the impacts of change may be
(Biesbroek et al. 2010; Mullan et al. 2015; Lesnikowski et al. 2016). In
the face of a changing climate, knowledge gaps about oceans and ocean
ecosystems are likely to widen. In times of uncertainty (Action 17)
monitoring regimes need to be persistent, transparent, and freely
available (Action 26). Academia, industry, society (Kelly et al. 2019),
politics, and media need to collaborate in collecting and disseminating
information and increasing awareness about improving ocean governance.
As climate change is already impacting the marine ecosystems, it is
important to increase preparedness to respond and recover, either
through precautionary recovery
plans (Hoeppner and Hughes 2019) or small scale rehabilitation work
(Alderman and Hobday 2017). In such contexts, it is also key to
consider, assess and monitor the impacts of climate change and different
human uses (Halpern et al. 2015; Grech et al. 2016; Mach et al. 2017)
(Actions 1, 13, 35). Industries that are susceptible to climate impacts
are starting to call on national governments and political parties to
acknowledge the effects of the changing climate and move from political
contests over evidence to proactive steps to address looming impacts. An
example is a recent statement by Australia’s largest insurance company
calling for effective policies to reduce risk from climate change
enhanced natural disasters.