With the United States withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, there is a lot of uncertainty about what U.S. climate diplomacy will look like under the current administration. But despite challenges at the national level, many state governments are poised to continue making progress on global climate action. This new dynamic is already playing out in response to ocean acidification. Daniel and Alison sat down with Jessie Turner, executive director of the International Alliance to Combat Ocean Acidification (OA Alliance), to explore the landscape—or seascape—of subnational climate diplomacy.

 

 

Show notes:

 

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Episode Transcript: 

Daniel Bresette: Hello and welcome to The Climate Conversation. I'm Dan Bresette, president of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, and with me is my co-host, Alison Davis. Hey, Alison, how are you doing today?

Alison Davis: I’m feeling a bit salty, but salty in a good way, because for today's episode, we're going to talk about oceans. More specifically, we're going to examine ocean acidification as a lens for the current state of climate diplomacy at the sub-national level. But let's back up for a moment to cover the basics. When we talk about climate change, most people think of the greenhouse gas effect and everything that happens up in the atmosphere. However, the ocean is also a critical piece of this puzzle.

Dan: The ocean has actually absorbed about 90% of excess heat and about 25% of the carbon dioxide emissions released into the atmosphere by humans. As carbon dioxide levels increase and the ocean is forced to absorb more of it, it sets off a chemical reaction that actually makes seawater more acidified. This process is called “ocean acidification,” and it lowers the pH of seawater and decreases the availability of calcium carbonate. And calcium carbonate is critical for phytoplankton and many other marine species to make their shells and grow skeletons.

Alison: After observing the harm that ocean acidification was causing to oyster hatcheries on the West Coast, the U.S. states of California, Oregon, and Washington, created the International Alliance to Combat Ocean Acidification, or the OA Alliance. The OA Alliance is a voluntary initiative of national and sub-national governments working to raise ambition for climate action and transform the global response to climate-ocean change. And that brings us to today's guest.

Dan: Jesse Turner is the executive director of the International Alliance to Combat Ocean Acidification, setting the strategic direction of the organization and overseeing annual programming. Jesse also establishes partnerships across a variety of disciplines and coalitions, employs communication strategies across multiple scales, and supports members in the development of practicable ocean acidification adaptation and resilience strategies. Jesse served as lead facilitator to the Pacific Coast Collaborative’s Ocean Acidification and Hypoxia Working Group between 2014 and 2023 she has 15 years of experience working in public policy development, advocacy and stakeholder engagement at local to international scales. She's worked on wide ranging issues, including affordable home ownership, health care, energy efficiency, food waste, climate, and marine policy. Jesse, welcome to the show! The last time I saw you, we were in Azerbaijan at COP29.

Jessie Turner: Yes, indeed, we were. And it was so great to have EESI there and really coordinating a lot of the U.S.-centric conversations and report-out. So thank you for having us as part of that!

Dan: Well, it's nice of you to say that it was great. It was a really great experience to be at COP29 and we'll see what direction we take for COP30. But that cycle never stops. We'll be thinking about that very soon. Jesse, thanks for being on our podcast. I mentioned in your intro that you had worked as lead facilitator to the Pacific Coast Collaborative’s Ocean Acidification and Hypoxia Working Group, and that organization is made up of sub-national governments—states and at least one Canadian province. What role have U.S. states played in advancing information and response to ocean acidification?

Jessie: Great. Well, thank you so much, Dan, for having me on the podcast. And yes, U.S. states have played a very significant role in informing how we think about ocean acidification knowledge and response. And that really started in the early 2000s when we had large-scale impacts on oyster hatchery operations occurring particularly in Washington and Oregon. So in the early 2000s we had oyster growers that were pumping in sea water from the coast and having large scale die offs of their baby oyster larvae in tanks. And they didn't understand at first what that was about. Was it a temperature change? Was it, you know, something like a virus? And it was through a lot of work and consultation with groups like NOAA, as well as local research universities along the West Coast, that they realized it was an instance where the waters pH was so low that when they were pumping that right into their tanks, their baby oysters couldn't develop and grow their shells further because there wasn't enough calcium carbonate in the water for them to do that. And that really kicked off a huge amount of interest and sort of alarm at the time around ocean acidification across the U.S. state government. Because the oyster growers went to the state governments and said this is a problem for us. This is a problem for jobs and livelihoods, and we really need to get a handle on a research agenda that can be fit for purpose. And so one of the things that I was not part of creating, but certainly part of understanding and starting to share out was this West Coast Ocean Acidification Hypoxia science panel, and that was the three West Coast states, along with the province of British Columbia, coming together to say yes, this is a climate change issue. We need to talk about acidification as a carbon issue number one, and that we need to reduce carbon emissions in order to mitigate ocean acidification. And number two, what is the research agenda that we can coordinate together along the west coast, with states, with federal partners like NOAA to make sure this doesn't happen again? And part of that is monitoring and forecasting. Part of that's exploring the adaptation and resiliency strategies and sort of the research you need to pinpoint which of those are going to work, where. And states have really been baked into the DNA of that conversation. I would say that at a broad level, the federal government started working on acidification in 2009 passing something through Congress called FORAM, which is the Federal OA Research and Monitoring Act, and that created, at the time, NOAA's Ocean Acidification Program, as well as created an interagency working group on ocean acidification, bringing together agencies like NOAA, EPA, State Department, CEQ, to have a conversation about what the federal research agenda looks like. But even as that has been going on, states have continued to really lead the direct implementation of action on acidification. They did that in sort of three parts, I would say. The first is that a lot of states began to gather the right people in conversation. So it can't just be the science community. It has to be colleagues like the oyster growing community and the state agency community, as well as tribal governments and NGOs in a region having that conversation about what OA means to them, what are the concerns and what is the research we need to prioritize. Early on, we had states like Maine setting up something called MOCA, which was their Maine Ocean and Coastal Acidification Partnership. We had a blue ribbon panel on acidification in Washington. We've had the State of Massachusetts pull together a task force, and we've seen that in different shapes and sizes. The second big thing is that states have been working on OA action plans. And so we've seen states like Oregon, California, Maryland, Hawai’i, New Jersey, New York, since about 2018 all the way through now releasing a state document around their policy approach to this topic. And then, thirdly, states have continued to really lead on identifying research that's needed the most. So it's not just measuring the state of acidification on a trend. We need to think about how this relates to risk and vulnerability assessments that states are taking on, how we think about seafood security and economies at scale, how we think about blue carbon and coastal conservation of some of these ecosystems that can really buffer against the impacts of acidification locally. Water quality has been a big topic of interest for states, looking at the relationship between coastal acidification, hypoxia and water quality and how we measure water quality a little bit differently to include those criteria. And then finally, an emergent topic has been marine carbon dioxide removal strategies. So those are just sort of the broad ways that states have really led on this topic, from the beginning of the 2000s all the way through today.

Dan: You mentioned, you know, setting research agendas at the state levels. What are the policy landscapes at the, you know, state, national levels? And how do what maybe we have as a policy landscape here in the United States, you know, how does that interact with maybe what the Canadian government is doing, either at the provincial level or at the Canadian federal level?

Jessie: So we kind of think about policy landscapes for acidification at domestic level and international level. And by international, I mean like UN Framework systems. So when we started the Alliance, one of the big ideas was to say, Yeah, we want states to elevate the topic of acidification. We want to talk about this in a climate change context and in a, you know, adaptation, resilience context. But what is the thing we actually want them to do? What's the missing element? And we started talking about these OA action plans. And the idea was really to say we need governments to put pen to paper, to think about, what do they know? What do they not know about acidification in their area? And you know, what kind of gaps do they want to close for what types of purposes, what types of policy outcomes, as we sort of just talked about this OA information for different different applications. And the action plan is a good way to really take inventory. It's often too much to go to a government and say, have you thought about ocean acidification lately? What are you doing to address acidification? No government, no ministry, will have a quick answer to that, except maybe NOAA. And so it's really been our work to socialize that through these action plans. But as we've grown over the years and matured a bit more, we really understood that it's not just enough to have a couple pages of an acidification policy sitting on a shelf. We really need to integrate this work into mainstream policies that governments are already using. So it's really our position that if you have a state climate action plan, if you have a state coastal management strategy, if you have a state marine resource management portfolio, all of that should include and reflect acidification knowledge for purpose. And so that's really been the direction we've been driving to socialize to make sure it doesn't have to be an entire chapter, and we're certainly not suggesting that every state needs to drop everything all at once and go work on acidification as a number one priority. It's really that we need to think about the most useful science and embed that in the most useful locations. And that if you're a coastal state or coastal national government with a climate action plan and you don't include acidification, you're really missing something. And that's really been the way we think about that domestic policy. I would say at the international level, I mean, I think it's quite true for ministries. You know, I would say that so much of our job is just connecting one ministry to another ministry working on climate or environment or oceans or fisheries, and that they are not speaking to each other. And so because acidification is sort of a new, novel science topic, it means it's like a very new policy topic, and it's multi-discipline, it's cross-sector. So getting these ministerial leads to talk to each other to make sure that their work is reflecting this ongoing change caused by greenhouse gas emissions, and thinking about those fishery strategies, thinking about those blue carbon strategies, thinking about that pollution strategy, those need to work together better. And that's really been the work of thinking about how the domestic response needs to be better coordinated.

Alison: Thinking about your time facilitating the Ocean Acidification and Hypoxia Working Group at the Pacific Coast Collaborative, what are some lessons learned on sub-national climate diplomacy that you encountered through that experience?

Jessie: Yes, the time at the Pacific Coast Collaborative was so informative in thinking about state-to-state sub-national climate diplomacy, I think the big things that I take away and that are really useful as any kind of topic you might work on. The first is just that states like to compete. You know, there's a lot to be said for friendly competition. I remember the days of Governor Jerry Brown in California and Governor Jay Inslee in Washington and Kate Brown in Oregon. And there was always, you know, this little, which state has the, you know, best targets, and which state has met their goals soonest. And so that type of little light peer pressure can always be quite helpful. I actually find that in the ministerial level as well in the international spaces. But that's always a good thing. And as long as it's friendly competition and in the same direction, that can be quite useful. The second thing is that regionalizing trans-boundary issues really can work. And climate particularly, that's a really needed mentality. At the PCC, we thought about, what does it mean to have electric vehicle infrastructure build-out across an entire west coast? You know, it doesn't make sense to have one state think about this disconnected from another state's highway system, right? And so those are great examples. Other ones are like building codes, you know, for energy efficiency and thinking about different, you know, approaches to a West Coast or sort of a regional set of standards. Food systems—I worked a lot on food waste. So again, we think about these really interconnected food systems when it comes to whole, you know, coastal supply chains of grocery outlets, farming communities, and how we have better conversations about reducing food waste along the different chains of distribution and consumption. Putting a price on carbon, that was a big one. And then, of course, ocean acidification and hypoxia, sharing a big West Coast and California current and having a similar research agenda in mind for similar outcomes, that's all stuff that states need to be doing regionally to maximize their work. And I think a big thing common across all of those sorts of topics is that you can get measurement compatibility, you can get policy compatibility, and in some cases, as needed, market compatibility, like in a price on carbon. And so those are a lot of things that by regionalizing at least the conversation, you can have a lot of really meaningful inter-linkages. Again, I would say the third kind of big thing is that sharing information and best practices really do matter, even if it's not like a shared regulatory approach. And then I would say the other big thing I learned is that states are, and can be, very significant players in the international space. When the Pacific Coast Collaborative—it was started in 2008 so had been around for quite some time—but leading up to the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015, 14, we saw entities like the Under2 MOU come on board, which was a group of sub-national actors making emissions reductions commitments in line with Paris and really driving a global agenda for sub-national commitments. You know, we have stats, things like, California is the fifth-largest economy in the world, right? And so these are not insignificant actors in these international spaces. And so it's really meaningful to see that sub-national leadership, both together under sort of a U.S. context, and then internationally. And that's what the alliance—the OA Alliance—has really been about: fostering that multiple jurisdiction information-sharing across states, national governments, and then having an international conversation.

Alison: You mentioned the Paris Agreement, and I'd like to turn it now to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or the UNFCCC. Could you tell us a bit about the OA Alliance's role at the annual international climate conference? And looking ahead, what are your hopes for action on ocean acidification at COP30 in Brazil?

Jessie: So we were started, as mentioned, in 2016, and that was right after the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015. And that was a moment where we really saw that there was not a lot of mention of ocean or coastal or marine anything in the Paris Climate Agreement outside of sort of some preamble language. And so we've been part of a coalition that's both civil society as well as national governments and states since that time, really working together to figure out what needs to change, what needs to be better accounted for on ocean and coastal issues at the UNFCCC. And so our first number-one goal has always been simply to elevate ocean as a missing component. And we think about that as you know, what is the ocean's role in the Global Stocktake, in something like a global goal on adaptation, in sort of the funding needs for mitigation, adaptation, capacity building of different national governments? You know, existential questions related to acidification, like, are temperature targets even enough? You know, we have these sort of temperature targets to limit greenhouse gas emissions, but acidification, of course, is caused by CO2 emissions going into the ocean, and that's continuing to worsen, and it's not quite linked to a temperature target. So how do we think about responsibilities under the UNFCCC to limit CO2 in certain ways that don't interfere with the things that the Paris Climate Agreement has agreed that we want to avoid interference with, you know, things like ecosystem loss, things like food security, livelihoods. And so our job is to really raise the flag and talk about, how does acidification uniquely fit into this larger conversation of responsibilities at the UNFCCC and some of the different bodies, as well as sort of informal groups that national governments are part of through the UNFCCC. And I would say that we do this sort of in three different ways, through the alliance. The first is just showing up at events. You know, Dan, we talked about being at COP29 and you know the chaos of what the Blue Zone means. You know, you've got all these different pavilions from all over the world and really making sure that we're showing up with events, talking about acidification, showing both trends from an IPCC perspective, but also thinking about that national government response and ways that UNFCCC can take more responsibility and ownership. The second big thing to note, I think, is that the UNFCCC is now about three, four years into what is a proper ocean and climate change Dialogue at the UNFCCC. So we provide input into how the UNFCCC should think about ocean mitigation, adaptation and financing. We make submissions—you can find them at the UNFCCC Secretariat's data portal online—and we work with our parties, our members who are parties to the Paris Climate Agreement, to think through what that's going to look like and what the needs are. And then the final one is really sharing policy examples. So our big push, and one of our hopes for COP30 in Brazil, is that we see more national governments incorporate acidification across their nationally determined contributions, NDCs, and their NAPs, their national adaptation plans. So we really do a lot of information-sharing, writing policy guidance for how countries and why countries might include that into those policy documents. And then again, you know, I would say that states continue to be the prime example for how you think about OA research for different policy purposes. And so we pull on all that information from our states, learning and sharing, and try to bring that into the UNFCCC framework as much as we can.

Alison: As a quick follow-up, I'll admit that I haven't looked very closely at the United States’ most recent NDC (nationally determined contribution). Do you happen to know if ocean acidification was mentioned in that?

Jessie: It's an excellent question. I'm not sure ocean acidification is mentioned in that. I'm sure that ocean broadly is mentioned in that. And so, you know, I think NDCs—not having a most recent purview of the policy text—have a lot of focus on how we think about emissions reductions from using things like offshore wind as a primary example, and the shipping sector. And so I'm certain that the United States has been very vocal leaders in thinking about emissions reductions in the shipping sector, emissions reductions using ocean offshore wind or renewable energy. And so things like that would be showing up in the NDC. I will highlight that the U.S. under the Biden Administration had the Ocean Climate Action Plan, and that had an entire sort of set of domestic policies around ocean-climate issues. Acidification had a very big chapter. And that Ocean Climate Action Plan was actually shared out at the UNFCCC ocean climate dialogue as one example for national governments looking at that domestic-facing work. So that is one way that the U.S. has really elevated and shared out that leadership in spaces like the UNFCCC, even if it's not expressly reflected in that NDC of now,

Alison: Now that the United States is withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, what could U.S. engagement on ocean acidification and other issues covered at the climate conference look like moving forward?

Jessie: Sure, so I'll say that you know our experience with the Alliance, we have now been part of the UNFCCC COPs since 2017—that was COP23 that was held in Bonn, Germany, at the UNFCCC Secretariat's campus. Although Fiji was the proper President of the COP that year, and I believe it was actually a cyclone that had caused some damage in Fiji that had prevented them from actually hosting properly in the country. But I mention that because at that time, Fiji in 2017, launched something called the Ocean Pathway Partnership. And it was one of the first times at the UNFCCC that we saw a big sort of ocean contingency, a coalition that included civil society, national governments, really shaping up this agenda for what we needed to see on ocean at the UNFCCC. The United States was very much part of that effort and put a lot of energy into getting this outcome of the ocean climate dialogue that I just mentioned. And so certainly, the U.S. engagement on Paris and particularly on ocean issues has been really significant. What I would say, however, is that they're not the only voices that have been very active and very influential in this space. So we saw countries right away, Canada and Chile, they were the co-chairs of that first ocean climate dialogue. The incoming co-chairs—there are actually three—we'll have Belgium, Fiji, and Brazil. And they're really leading this national, this party conversation, right? And I think that will continue, even if the United States is part of that ocean climate dialogue or not. And so it's really great to see that momentum that was laid. You know, the groundwork was laid, and the momentum is there. And so I think that's sort of where the ocean conversation will be going. I think that U.S. states can continue to play a really big role, along with our national government and providing more context. Why are we talking about acidification at the UNFCCC? Why do we care about this as a livelihood issue, as a seafood economies issue, as a mitigation adaptation issue? We have lots of experience around that context in the United States, with the first ever observed impacts on our West Coast, and continuing to sort of track these different trends and biological responses. And we also have a lot of content. You know, we still continue to be global leaders. And what can you do about acidification? What is the research you need to incorporate in these mainstream documents? And I know that this is still a need, and I know that the U.S. in different ways, whether it's our federal government or whether it's our U.S. states, will continue to show up and play that role for context and content.

Dan: We're still a couple months out, eight months or so, maybe seven and a half months out from COP. And you know, I think while there's a lot of uncertainty about what the official U.S. presence will look like, it will probably be on the minimum end of the spectrum. You know, I think it's probably pretty reasonable to expect that local governments, state governments, especially the private sector, academic institutions, will continue to participate as observers. Also, you know, feed information into the deliberations, into the negotiations. There's a lot of specialized capacity that a lot of those organizations have. Going forward, you know, thinking that the next, you know, two to four years, the U.S. presence will be very different than it was for the last four years. But what are some upcoming opportunities for sub-national entities and other organizations that kind of exist in that ecosystem around them, to collaborate on international efforts to address ocean acidification?

Jessie: Well, I would say the shameless plug, of course, is come join the OA Alliance, because we do have a broad constituency of sub-national actors, obviously states, ports, tribal governments, cities, NGOs, aquaria, you know, research institutions, industry partners, are all members of the alliance. So while we really kind of cater to our governments as sort of our core constituency, we have all these affiliate members that, again, we include every sub-national government as a government member, and then our affiliate members that sort of work together in these different ways to put this on the global stage. And so that's sort of the first, I guess, invitation. But in doing that, you know, we do think about the sort of ways that ocean and climate and ocean acidification will continue to have presence on the international stage, and where U.S. states can plug in. That includes the UNFCCC, but it's not exclusive to. So coming up here in June, we'll have the third-ever U.N. Oceans Conference. This was started under the auspices of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goal 2030 Agenda, where we've outlined 17 different goals that we want to make progress on towards 2030 and there is an ocean goal—Goal 14, Life Below Water—that has an acidification target. And so we have been working and showing up to the U.N. Ocean Conference for the last two you know, we had a first one in 2017, the second was a bit delayed because of COVID, occurred in 2022, and now we'll have the third iteration. And at all of these U.N. Ocean Conferences, we have gone to make sure that acidification isn't just spoken about in terms of measuring and reporting globally. There's great groups like IOC UNESCO that are really leading that charge, and that's important. 70% of all ocean acidification information is produced for and by U.S., Canada, UK, Europe. So there's a huge global disparity in just measurement. And so it's a really big challenge, and really important elements regarding equity and adaptation resilience to fill that gap. But we know we also need to be bringing that work into the policy space, into the investment space, and so that's what we do when we are there. I would say U.S. states have been at every U.N. Ocean Conference that we have attended. Back in 2017 it was the states of California, Oregon, Washington, alongside oyster grower communities that had our first ocean acidification event ever, and since then, now we've grown internationally. But we had groups from Fiji and Samoa and Palau and Norway and Chile and France come up to us after that event and get animated around doing something on acidification, all because those states were there talking about it. At the last Ocean Conference, we had a lot of states make these voluntary commitments to create their action plans to invest in OA research for purpose, and so we'll continue to shepherd that through at this upcoming one. The second thing I would say is that there is getting maybe more attention is something called the U.N. Decade of Ocean Science. And that's almost exactly what it sounds like. It is the U.N. creating the decade, 10 years of ocean science. You know, I think it's the science we need for the ocean we want. And we have an ocean acidification program that we've been working on that is an awesome collaboration between OA scientists all around the world, including the United States, coming together with governments all around the world, including sub-national governments like U.S. governments. They are working to define a research agenda for purpose, and I would say that the U.S. states have the most knowledge, the most expertise, the best perspective on this by far. And so bringing more U.S. voices into that type of global conversation is a huge value-add, I think, to everyone involved. And then lastly, at the UNFCCC, of course, coming to the COPs, being part of the side events, being part of that context and content will be increasingly important. While I am optimistic that there are still lots of global actors to drive a global climate mitigation and adaptation agenda forward, the more we can see examples, the better. And that's really where states, I think, will continue to lead and are really needed. So those are sort of the on-ramps, I would say, from our perspective on where the international acidification work is really living right now.

Dan: And just to be clear, there's no such thing as a shameless plug. We don't plug shame. 

Jessie: That’s great. My upcoming book and my upcoming mini-series include… no, I'm kidding.

Dan: That’s right. Hey, why not? Why not? That's great. Well, this is a super interesting topic. The work is very exciting. Thank you so much for bringing your experience and your perspectives to our audience. Thanks so much for being a guest on our podcast. Thanks for inviting Jesse to the podcast, Alison, I'm really glad that she had a chance to participate. Great person to talk to. Like I mentioned, we met last year when Anna and I were in Azerbaijan, and Jesse was on one of our press conferences talking about these issues. And it was super interesting. And I think this episode was a great way to introduce people to this really important topic, and probably one of those topics that is probably more important than people give it credit for in terms of how the science actually works with how the planet reacts to carbon dioxide emissions. I think one thing I was thinking about, especially towards the end of our conversations, is, I think this would be really ripe for us to spend a little bit more time looking at some of these solutions. I think telling the story of how different stakeholders that are affected by the consequences of ocean acidification—we've talked about oyster production, but, you know, that's probably just one. I think one of my key takeaways is to think a little bit more about all of the different industries that rely on a healthy ocean, and to look for those kinds of solutions, especially since a lot of these international issues, a lot of the you know, the federal issues, I think the amount of attention that they're going to get going forward is uncertain. But being able to tie this back to local economies is probably a good thing for us to spend a little bit more time on, and maybe also a good way to introduce more people to this concept of ocean acidification and what it actually means and what's behind it, and what are the consequences for letting it get even more out of control. 

Alison: You know, I was mostly joking earlier when I said that I'm feeling a little salty, but it really has been kind of a frustrating time in terms of climate policy. And in the wake of the announcement about the United States withdrawing from Paris, the current administration has made several other decisions related to climate diplomacy, including canceling a commitment of $4 billion to the Green Climate Fund, and also blocking U.S. scientists from attending IPCC meetings on the next Assessment Report that's slated for 2029. So it can be difficult to feel optimistic some days, but talking to Jesse was just great, and it was so inspiring to hear her describe how state governments can have a really outsized impact on climate diplomacy and on responding to issues like ocean acidification. If you want to learn more about EESI’s work on oceans or climate diplomacy, head to our website at eesi.org. Also, follow us on social media @eesionline for all of our recent updates. The Climate Conversation is published as a supplement to our bi-weekly newsletter, Climate Change Solutions. Go to eesi.org/signup to subscribe. Thanks for joining us and see you next time!