Climate Change and Sustainable Development Forum

Date: 7:00PM March 21 (Wednesday)

Place: Room #215 International Studies Hall, Korea University

Speaker: Rakhyun Kim (Doctoral Researcher, Fenner School of Environmentand Society, Australian National University)

Title: Is a New Multilateral Environment Agreement on Ocean Acidification Necessary?

This event will be conducted only in English and is open to the public.

Please RSVP to csdlap@naver.com.

Direction: 10 minutes from Exit #2 of Anam Station (line #6)

Synopsis

No multilateral environmental agreement (MEA) has so far been concluded with addressing the ocean acidification problem as its main objective. The United Nations Convention on Climate Change is considered by many as being capable of addressing ocean acidification as it regulates carbon dioxide emissions, the root cause of the problem. I argue that, on the contrary, the climate change convention alone does not provide an adequate legal framework for addressing ocean acidification because ocean acidification is not an effect of climate change, hence sits outside its jurisdiction. I then critically examine whether ocean acidification can be adequately addressed through improved coordination and cooperation among the existing network of MEAs or a new MEA on ocean acidification is necessary. Specifically, I consider the extent to which the provisions of relevant MEAs are applicable to ocean acidification, how their decision-making bodies have responded to the ocean acidification problem, and their institutional interactions. I conclude that a new MEA for ocean acidification is necessary to fill the governance gap, and that it would entail a separate and more stringent target for carbon dioxide emissions than that of the climate change treaty. I recommend that the new MEA take the form of a convention (as distinct from a protocol to, for example, the Convention on Biological Diversity) with progressive relationship provisions that would effectively link it to relevant MEAs on climate change, biodiversity, and the marine environment. Finally, I speculate on the implications of having two treaty regimes regulating carbon dioxide emissions for the global environmental governance landscape.