Written evidence submitted by National Oceanography Centre (NZG0037)

National Oceanography Centre’s submission to the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee’s inquiry into net zero governance

1. The UK’s National Oceanography Centre (NOC) is one of the world’s leading oceanographic institutions with a remit to deliver research from the coast to the deep ocean. Our activities span numerous disciplines, from ocean physics to numerical modelling, marine biology, climate change, marine geophysics and technology innovation. We manage the UK’s national fleet of oceanographic research vessels and serve the needs of the UK’s marine science community through the National Marine Equipment Pool and the British Oceanographic Data Centre.

2. We welcome the opportunity to provide written evidence to the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee’s inquiry into net zero governance. The below focuses on questions 1 and 4 in the call for evidence, with an emphasis on net zero governance in the context of the ocean. We would be pleased to make further NOC expertise available to the Committee if required.

Executive summary

3. NOC’s response on a governance structure that can deliver cross-government climate action will focus on the role of the ocean. In this context, we make recommendations on the following:

• Minister for the Ocean: The Committee is correct to draw attention to the need for cross-government action. Regarding the ocean, responsibility and focus are fragmented across a range of government departments, inhibiting an effective approach and making progress towards net zero more difficult. We recommend the creation of a Minister for the Ocean, bringing together work on transport, energy, the environment, marine policy and research. 
• Select committee – oceans inquiry: We recommend a coordinated oceans inquiry to give a fuller picture of the ocean’s role in reaching net zero, and the challenges to achieve this. Former inquiries have addressed specific aspects of the ocean, most recently the Environmental Audit Committee’s investigation into sustainable seas in 2018, but none has looked at the ocean in its entirety. Such an approach, involving a range of select committees, would provide a more complete view of reaching net zero, and the governance arrangements around it.

Governance structure for cross-government action (question 1)

4. Climate change is not limited to a single government department, and its potential impact will be on every aspect of government, and every facet of the lives of all citizens. Any pathway to Net Zero by 2050 involves removal of CO2 from the atmosphere to offset sectors that will be slower to decarbonise. CO2 removal includes a combination of preservation and restoration of natural carbon sinks (nature-based solution) as well as activities such as biofuel production in combination with carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS).  Hence natural carbon sinks are key to the ‘Net’ in Net Zero.

5. Covering 70% of the Earth’s surface to an average depth of 4km, the ocean absorbs over 90% of excess global heating and is the Earth’s largest reservoir of mobile carbon and takes up 2 billion tonnes of carbon per year (2 GtC/y), equivalent to a quarter of all anthropogenic emissions. However, this 2GtC/y is the difference between two large numbers (about 92GtC/y absorbed by the ocean and 90GtC/y released by the ocean to the atmosphere.) Questions of how stable this carbon sink is and its natural variability are therefore critical. 

6. It is not certain that an altered ocean can continue to provide this role as effectively as it does now and questions are rightly being asked as to whether it could even become a net source for pumping carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere. The other major challenge is biodiversity loss. In the ocean, the issues of climate change and biodiversity are inextricably linked (the ocean-climate-biodiversity nexus). For example, marine plants (including microscopic marine plankton) play a key role in absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere (the biological carbon pump). On the other hand, the cumulative direct and indirect impacts of climate change in the ocean (e.g. warming, acidification, de-oxygenation) as well as the consequences of other direct human activities (e.g. habitat degradation, over exploitation) affect the marine ecosystem services that mitigate climate change and its impacts.

7. A challenge for government is undoubtedly the use of technology to reduce emissions, in areas such as energy generation and transport. However, it is important not to lose sight of the ability of the natural environment to act as a carbon sink, and how, potentially, climate change is impacting on its ability to do this in the way we have come to expect. Greater research is needed into ocean carbon sinks to understand a trajectory towards net zero. In the G7 summit in June 2021, participants approved the G7 2030 Nature Compact, setting out an aim to “convene scientific and policy experts to discuss the carbon absorption function of the ocean, furthering targeted and effective ocean action[1]”. As part of the government’s governance of net zero objectives, it is crucial that the wider questions around carbon absorption are considered. In addition, a drive to promote battery technologies in order to deliver net zero will require mining of minerals, for use in batteries, (such as cobalt and lithium) which can be found on the seabed. Within the governance arrangement around net zero, a number of ‘trade offs’ such as these – the immediate needs of technology versus the impact on the natural environment – must be managed. The UK has pledged to phase out new internal combustion engine domestic vehicles by 2030. To replace the 31.5 million cars on UK roads with electric vehicles would require 300,000 tonnes of cobalt - over three times current annual world cobalt production[2].

8. There is only one vast, interconnected ocean where the motions of water and migrations of marine life don’t respect lines drawn on maps. Nearly two-thirds of the ocean is beyond the jurisdiction of any one country and is an environmental, economic, geopolitical, technological, and scientific frontier that is too big to ignore. Britain’s waters and marine life are only safe when all ocean waters are safe. Action at home must, therefore, be replicated by action with international partners overseas.  

9. Because of this cross-cutting nature of ocean management, no single government department is able to lead on this issue alone. Large scale research programmes and contributions to sustained observations, and prediction systems, are funded under BEIS either through UKRI/NERC or through the Met Office when including components important for weather and climate prediction. Defra is the UK’s lead department for the environment, but ocean management also impacts on the Department for Transport in relation to shipping and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) regarding international treaties and partnership working. It is clear that the issue of the ocean is too big for any one department to manage, and greater cross-government work is needed.

10. In order to deliver this, we recommend the appointment of a Minister for the Ocean based in the Cabinet Office. The role would coordinate the complex cross cutting nature of ocean policy issues and the science and evidence needs to support these. The Minister would be responsible for developing an integrated UK ocean strategy mirroring what has been achieved by the UK in having a space strategy. The Minister would be supported with senior experts across Government, industry and academia to ensure coordination of policy, and work closely with the new National Science and Technology Council to identify the science, data and evidence needs to support the UK’s ocean strategy.

11. Having a single minister for the ocean is not without precedent – in July 2010, the French Prime Minister Jean Castex set up a Ministry of the Sea (Ministére de la Mer), with President Macron viewing maritime strategy as a key priority. Within the UK, there have been attempts to create a single focus for marine science in particular, with the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee recommending in 2007 that a Minister for Marine Science be created within Defra, to “act as the Government champion for the whole maritime strategy[3]”. More than a decade on, this has not come to fruition. Current government structures have allocated a Minister for Pacific and the Environment sitting both in the FCDO and Defra. However, this excludes the range of government departments that need to be engaged with regard to ocean issues, including when meeting obligations to reach net zero (in particular transport, and the innovations and research functions within BEIS.) The Minister for aviation and shipping is removed from ministers and government departments working on energy and environmental concerns. The current arrangements deliver only piecemeal solutions to managing the ocean; not conducive to meeting the UK’s net zero governance needs.

12. The need for greater integration and coordination within government has been highlighted through a range of government strategies and initiatives. The integrated security, defence and foreign policy review sets out the desire to support a resilient ocean that is “effectively governed, clean, healthy, safe, productive and biologically diverse” by 2030, combining work on “maritime security, the environment and trade[4]”. We agree with the Government Office for Science’s assessment that “the UK should develop a more strategic position, with clear priorities, with regards to its marine interests.[5]” The ocean is too big to ignore, and too big not to have a single, clear and dedicated governance structure.

Current parliamentary scrutiny arrangements (question 4)

13. There are a range of parliamentary committees that look into the issue of climate change. We welcome the BEIS Committee’s commitment to work with the Environmental Audit Committee on the issue of net zero governance. It is clear that climate change, and achieving net zero, cut across departments and disciplines, so welcome moves to adopt a joined-up approach. As alluded to above, a lack of a joined-up approach to the ocean is clear within government, and we would like to see a cross cutting select committee inquiry on the ocean. An assessment of climate change in relation to the ocean must bring together a range of often competing areas of interest, including, but not limited to: shipping, and net zero transport across the ocean (including automated underwater vehicles); energy generated from wind and tidal power; the role of the ocean as a carbon sink, and changes in our marine environment; deep sea mining, and the need to tackle the challenges of delivering an increase in minerals needed for a huge growth in the use of batteries. The ocean is a shared space, a resource, a precious environmental expanse, and an indicator of the health of the planet. It must be viewed as a single entity, and policy-makers should adopt this approach. In the coming years we would like to see an ambitious, cross-committee inquiry into the ocean, covering much under the remit of the BEIS committee (research, innovation, the role of bodies such as UKRI) as well as many others as outlined throughout this response.

Conclusion

14. This submission has sought to address the issue of net zero governance of the ocean through a simple but far-reaching change – the centralisation of policy and responsibility in a single minister acting to address all areas of marine and maritime policy. This is ambitious, but necessary. Select committees can play their part, and we would like to see an integrated oceans inquiry to assess the inter-related issues we have highlighted above. The right governance arrangements are a necessary prerequisite to delivering a path to net zero, and we believe these changes would have a positive and lasting impact. 

Submitted on behalf of the National Oceanography Centre by David Boot, Head of Public Affairs

August 2021