Back in 2017, the United Nations announced something that sounded genuinely exciting: a Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030).
The idea was to have ten years of coordinated global investment in ocean science to help solve the ocean’s biggest problems, such as climate change, marine biodiversity collapse, pollution and fisheries mismanagement. As well as better informing the wider public about the oceans, their biological and economic impact, and the need for marine conservation.
In principle, it was the kind of big, ambitious, global science effort we desperately needed for the oceans. Something on the scale of the space race, but for the ocean.
Now we are halfway through the Decade and it has been a bitter disappointment.
A failure to launch
Like many, at the start of the Decade, my frequent collaborators and I were really enthused about the opportunities the Decade held. We brainstormed and wrote project proposals for the US Government’s “ocean shot” initiative. The idea was to come up with creative projects and ground-breaking initiatives to solve ocean problems. We wrote proposals, gave presentations, wrote papers and filled in pages and pages and pages of forms. We also submitted some of projects for official endorsement by the Decade organizers (for example the Marine Conservation Happy Hour podcast). Again, after more forms and multiple bureaucratic hoops that we jumped through, we duly got an email to say that we were endorsed.
And then we never heard anything ever again…
After a start filled with massive enthusiasm and hours and hours of presentations and hundreds of announcements, emails and flyers on how great the Decade would be, there was nothing.
So why has there been such a massive failure to launch?
No money
One of the most striking features of the UN Decade of Ocean Science is that it never actually came anything like the funding that it needed. It had a tiny budget for coordination (hence the massive amounts of paperwork), but pretty much nothing to actually do anything else.
As a result, the program (which is coordinated by the UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission) has largely been trying to “endorse” already existing projects and bringing them under the Decade’s branding. Countries, institutions, NGOs, and companies submit projects, and the Decade gives them a nice shiny “endorsed” sticker to put on their project.
This has produced hundreds of activities and dozens of programs (larger projects) for the Decade. But almost all of these projects had already been funded and would have been be happening anyway, regardless of the Decade. There were very, very few new projects.
Without a large pot of funding and a central grant giving system, the Decade has largely functioned as a branding exercise rather than the transformative, scientific initiative to ground-breaking and paradigm-shifting research and ideas that it was intended to be.
Endorsement is all very nice. But funding research, ships, sensors, labs, awareness-raising, community projects and supporting early-career scientists would be nicer.
Oceans … the unfunded frontier.
Ocean science has always had a fundamental problem: it’s really expensive.
Research vessels cost tens of thousands of dollars per day to operate. Autonomous vehicles and deep-sea submersibles are even pricier. Long-term monitoring networks require decades of support and lots of maintenance. Despite this, global spending on ocean science remains a rounding error in most national budgets.
A 2020 report from the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission found that less than 2% of national research budgets globally go to ocean science. That number hasn’t dramatically shifted during the Decade (and for one notable country it’s dramatically decreased over the past year).
If the goal was to transform how the world funds ocean research, we haven’t seen it yet. Instead, the Decade risks becoming a familiar pattern in international environmental policy, i.e., lots of hype, but little actual action and negligible change.
Conferences, panels, and the infinite workshop loop
If you’ve spent time in international ocean policy circles, you’ve probably noticed a pattern:
- workshops about frameworks;
- Panels about roadmaps; and
- meetings about coordinating meetings.
The Decade has produced an impressive number of “events” such as online workshops, but little in the way of new infrastructure, research programs or “boots on the ground” projects.
Imagine if themuch lauded International Geophysical Year had mostly resulted in zoom workshops instead of satellites and Antarctic stations. Or the moon shot of the 1960s-1970s had resulted in conferences instead of footsteps on the moon.
The Decade was supposed to akin to these inspiring initiatives. A true ocean equivalent would have been the creation of a truly global ocean observing network, thousands of new sensors, permanent monitoring arrays, and massive open data pipelines.
Instead, we’ve largely had more conversations about how nice that would be.
The global inequality problem
Ocean science also reflects the same inequality we see across the broader scientific landscape. Most research vessels, advanced labs, and long-term monitoring programs are concentrated in a handful of wealthy countries. Meanwhile, many coastal states (particularly in the Global South) lack the capacity to study their own waters. The Decade was supposed to help close this gap.
To the Decade’s credit, there have been capacity-building programs, fellowships, and training initiatives. But they remain modest compared with the scale of the problem.
However, a truly transformational initiative would look something like:
- regional, multi-national research fleets;
- Shared ocean observing systems; and
- Long-term funding for scientists (and their training) in coastal, low income nations.
These require sustained investment measured in billions, not small project grants measured in the thousands.
Isn’t it ironic – ocean science has never been more urgent
All of the above would be frustrating at any time.But it’s particularly frustrating right now as the ocean is undergoing some of the most rapid changes in recorded history:
- marine heatwaves are intensifying;
- coral reefs are collapsing;
- polar ice is disappearing; and
- species distributions are shifting at unprecedented speeds.
Moreover, the oceans are becoming even more critical in terms as its role to the global economy. For example, the number of European countries that are now reliant about marine renewable energy for their power. Or the vast role that shipping plays in international trade. The latter being particularly illustrated the current economic crisis being caused by a blocked shipping route.
To understand the massive ocean challenges we are facing we need more information and real world data, long-term monitoring and programs to directing answer the most important questions that are still unanswered.
Ocean science isn’t a luxury, it’s essentially infrastructure for managing the planet.
However, we are trying to do it with funding levels that wouldn’t cover a modest space mission.
The good news (because there is some)
To be fair, the Decade hasn’t been a total failure. It has, for example:
- raised political visibility of ocean science;
- encouraged interdisciplinary collaboration; and
- created new networks among researchers and institutions.
Moreover, some Decade-endorsed programs, although not actually the result of the Decade, are being highlighted and publicized. Ocean observing initiatives and underwater sensor networks, while not as glamorous as a research submersible, are being placed in the spotlight for the valuable role that they play in ocean science.
But visibility without investment can only go so far. You can’t run an oceanographic expedition on enthusiasm and logos.
What a real Decade of Ocean Science would look like
If the world were serious about the ocean, a real Ocean Decade initiative might include the flowing:
- A global fleet renewal program for research vessels;
- Massive expansion of autonomous ocean sensors;
- Permanent funding for long-term ecological monitoring;
- Open-access global ocean data infrastructure;
- Large-scale capacity building in coastal developing nations; and
- A major dee-sea exploration and mapping program including both manned and unmanned vehicles.
In other words, the scientific equivalent of a moon-shot, but aimed at the ocean.
Instead, what we’ve mostly gotten is a branding exercise wrapped around existing projects.
There is still time…but it’s running out
The Decade of Ocean Science runs until 2030. That means there’s still time to turn things around. But doing so will require governments to treat ocean science the same way they treat space exploration, particle physics, or defense research, i.e., as strategic infrastructure worth investing in.
Because the uncomfortable truth is that we know more about the surface of Mars than we do about 71% of the Earth’s surface and 99% of the biosphere: the ocean. A decade dedicated to fixing that massive lack of knowledge shouldn’t be settling for a few more workshops. It should be building the infrastructure to boldly go where no one has gone before.