Ocean acidification: An emerging Australian environmental security challenge: Fid-Bau Portal

Ocean acidification: An emerging Australian environmental security challenge

Allen, Ross / Bergin, Anthony

Ocean acidification refers to the natural process whereby carbon dioxide dissolves in the sea, forming a weak carbonic acid. The ocean is a major sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide and has absorbed about 48 per cent of the CO2 emitted by human activities since the pre-industrial age. Under conditions of increasing acidification, parts of the oceans will deteriorate and progressively become uninhabitable for certain types of plankton, central to the ocean food chain, and coral structures. Australia has a direct stake in the ocean acidification problem: it will affect every part of our marine environment.

In the absence of any clear preventive solutions, and with so much at stake, Australia needs to understand how best to adapt to the problem of acidic seas. We need a more collaborative national research effort to enable broad partnerships to develop across the research community with marine-focused agencies, increasing Australia’s capacity and readiness to adapt to global oceanic changes. We need to address our marine research capability. Merchant vessels could be utilised to collect water samples needed to measure the rate of change in ocean acidity. Australia should become a lead nation in monitoring acidification levels in regional waters and raise the issue of sustaining our oceans at every opportunity in regional and international bodies concerned with global environmental change. As the debate about who wins and who loses in the future Australian emissions trading regime intensifies, we should remember that with ocean acidification there will only be losers.