Halifax delegation at COP27 highlighting importance of the high seas

A delegation from the Ocean Frontier Institute is in Egypt on a mission to push for international collaboration on the open ocean.

“It's the ocean that controls our climate,” said Anya Waite, the CEO and scientific director for the Ocean Frontier Institute.

Waite spoke with CTV News from Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, where she will speak, or be a panelist, for several days at the United Nations’ 27th Climate Change Summit, known as COP27.

Her team’s eyes are on the deep ocean, a critical carbon sink that knows no border and falls under no country’s responsibility, but is under-observed and must be better understood.

“Much of the observing infrastructure is becoming fragile,” Waite said. “It's dropping off, and without significant international engagement and investment we won't have the systems that we need to take us to our climate targets.”

Her teams is proposing a collaborative observing system that is co-designed by a consortium of nations to bridge the gap and help inform policy. Without accurate forecasts, Waite believes it is impossible to set effective climate policies.

While oceans wrap almost three-quarters of the planet in water, in climate talks, oceans have long been shut out.

“In the COP climate change conferences it was not until 2015 that the word ocean was even mentioned in the convention text,” said Boris Worm, an ocean researcher and professor in marine conservation at Dalhousie University.

He spoke with CTV News from Monterey, California, where he is speaking about climate adaptation.

“There’s a real hope we can bring more oceans solutions into the climate debate.”

Researchers note the ocean is warming, rising, becoming more acidic and losing oxygen.

“Especially for Gulf of St. Lawrence, around Nova Scotia and some coastal regions around Canada, it’s the decrease in oxygen which could be a serious threat to marine ecosystems,” said Doug Wallace. scientific director of the Marine Environmental Observation, Prediction and Response Network (MEOPAR).

Warmer waters also fuel forces like hurricanes.

“A lot of them are forming even outside of their traditional areas in the tropics because the ocean temperatures have been warming somewhat,” said Chris Fogarty, manager of the Canadian Hurricane Centre.

Post-tropical storm Fiona left hundreds of millions of dollars in damage just three years after Dorian.

When asked if large hurricanes will become more frequent, Chris Fogarty of the Canadian Hurricane Centre said it's still being debated.

“We don't have a lot of certainty in terms of the frequency or wind intensity of the storms, but as far as the rain fall threat, that's quite likely to increase,” Fogarty said.