In the Sustainable Development Goals, the world has set forth a bold new vision for global development and committed to achieving it by the year 2030.   SDG 14 calls for us to “conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.” While most of the targets in SDG 14 cover ocean issues and challenges that are well known to most, such as pollution and overfishing, one SDG 14 target, 14.3, may not be so familiar: 14.3 Minimize and address the impacts of ocean acidification, including through enhanced scientific cooperation at all levels. What is ocean acidification, and why is it so important to ocean sustainability and therefore to the SDG agenda?

NOAA and its partners released the first federal strategic plan to guide research and monitoring investments that will improve our understanding of ocean acidification, its potential impacts on marine species and ecosystems, and adaptation and mitigation strategies.

An environmental crisis is looming on the marine horizon. Ocean acidification threatens Maine’s inshore fisheries, growing aquaculture industry and the jobs that rely on them.

The culprit in this story is carbon dioxide. It’s changing the chemistry of the ocean and endangering shellfish like lobster, oysters, clams and sea urchins.

NOAA, academic and international scientific experts are gathering July 24 -26, to further develop the Global Ocean Acidification Network (GOA-ON). The purpose of this network is to facilitate international coordination in order to compare and integrate observational data collection specific to ocean acidification across the globe. This group is designing a global standard for measuring and identifying ocean acidification and is important for establishing a global understanding of ocean acidification including its impacts on ocean life as well as humans. This network will ensure data quality and comparability, facilitated by a structured system based on common standards. It will also assist policy-making through research products and model-based projections of future potential impacts of ocean acidification. 

On June 18th, 2013, Dr. Libby Jewett, director of the NOAA Ocean Acidification program spoke as one of the panelists at the fourteenth meeting of the UN Open-ended Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea.  This year’s topic focused on the impact of ocean acidification on the marine environment.