A broad range of emerging environmental issues, from new contaminants to marine renewable energies and ocean deoxygenation, are threatening to jeopardize the health, resilience, and sustainable use of marine ecosystems and the important services they offer to earth and humankind. In particular, the 21st Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change recently placed renewed focus on the links between a changing climate and an ocean already under cumulative strain from human marine activities.
IOC is committed to improving our understanding of these changes occurring within the ocean – including the deep sea – while mobilizing the scientific and policy communities to address these emerging issues. IOC actively promotes and coordinates scientific research, technical analysis and syntheses of scientific information to inform policy and advance effective solutions through a timely, transparent and multistakeholder approach.