Greenhouse Gas Emissions Could Trigger a Trillion-Dollar Coral Reef Problem

Greenhouse gas emissions’ impacts on the world’s oceans have caused a growing and expensive problem.

The issue is ocean acidification, oulined in a Convention on Biological Diversity report launched Wednesday in Pyeongchang, Republic of Korea, at the twelfth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 12).

The report, An Updated Synthesis of the Impacts of Ocean Acidification on Marine Biodiversity, explains how the oceans’ absorption of atmospheric carbon dioxide has driven a change in ocean chemistry that lowers ph levels, meaning the waters are more acidic.

This acidification has increased 26 percent since pre-Industrial times, the report says, and it is occurring at a “geologically unprecedented rate.” While the increase happened quickly, historic evidence, the report states, shows that recovery could take 100,000 years.

The executive summary states that “it is now nearly inevitable that within 50 to 100 years, continued anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions will further increase ocean acidity to levels that will have widespread impacts, mostly deleterious, on marine organisms and ecosystems, and the goods and services they provide.”