Climate Change and the Ocean Economy: A Review on OECD's Ocean Economy

Introduction

Climate change and global warming change the ecological structure of our planet and affect the continuity of natural life. With the acceptance of the reality of climate change, discussions on the continuity of humanity have increased. World leaders have begun to feel the effects of climate change and global warming in recent years, Although climate change is essentially a natural weather phenomenon, it has become a major problem in the years that started with the industrial revolution due to human-induced effects (NASA Global Climate Change, n.d.; European Commission, n.d.; Turrentine, 2022; Yıldırım and Yıldırım, 2022). As a result of fossil fuels used for industry and production, excessive use of natural resources, inefficient use of water resources and neglecting environmental pollution for a long time, world leaders have been faced with the problem of sustainability (Bostancı ve Yıldırım, 2021). The reality accepted today can be said to be the danger of the rapid end of life as a result of an increase in the temperature of the world by more than one and a half degrees. The physical and chemical properties of the oceans have changed as a result of climate change. In particular, warming caused by CO2 and other greenhouse gases has also caused an increase in water temperatures in the oceans (Jiao et al., 2015). While scientists and researchers emphasize that climate change is a global problem, they also state that there should be global solutions to combat its effects (Koyuncu, 2021; Shukman, 2021).

The first affected factors as a result of climate change and global warming are ecosystem and biodiversity. Every change that occurs in the ecosystem also creates a change in the population and living conditions of the living things in the relevant environment (Lake et al., 2012). At this point, the most observable evidence can be considered changes in the oceans and seas. As a result of temperature differences in sea water, extinction problem arises in local species, and some invasive alien marine species are displaced, threatening local marine species and endangering the marine economy (Yildirim and Kaplan, 2022; Kaplan et al., 2022; Kaplan and Yildirim, 2023).

It is known that climate change and global warming affect economic activities based on natural resources such as “agriculture, livestock, fisheries, forestry etc.” therefore, the arrangements and measures to be taken regarding the continuity of these economies will also be of vital importance for the continuity of human life (Hoeden et al., 2007; Reid et al., 2008; Hossain et al., 2012; FAO, 2015; Ladrera and Cagasan, 2022;). Every country in the world has different sources of wealth. Although the countries with natural gas and oil seem lucky in terms of energy, the food and water crisis has also been among the prominent issues after the Ukraine-Russia war and the Covid-19 pandemic (Acer, 2022; Murphy, 2022; Bozkuş, 2022). With the year 2023, the food crisis is estimated to be the first issue that world leaders focus on. In this context, developed and developing countries will start to develop new prevention programs for food security. Fisheries, on the other hand, have an important position in many countries for the continuity of food security. In the studies, it is emphasized that the continuity of the marine economy is important for both food security, economic development and social welfare (Yildirim and Kaplan, 2020; Yıldırım and Yıldırım, 2021).