The oceans are a crucial part of the Earth’s climate system, and understanding the complex mechanisms of ocean systems is key to anticipating the effects of anthropogenic drivers of future climate change.

As oceanographic and climate patterns change at an unprecedented pace, marine living organisms, from individuals to populations to species, are adapting in ways that will shape future patterns of biodiversity, reshaping the marine world around us.

Seafood is one of the world’s most traded commodities and vital for food security and economics across the world. In the face of rapid global change, maintaining and improving seafood supply systems will require science- and human rights-based adaptive approaches from sea to plate.

Interwoven with marine ecosystems, it is human social systems–and how we understand and shape them–that determine how the benefits of oceans and the potential costs of policies are shared across communities and nations.

At local, national, and international scales, cooperative policies and the platforms to achieve them are essential to address, mitigate, and adapt to the global challenges of climate change and our expanding use of natural resources.

The vast majority of the world’s oceans, from high seas to seabeds, are beyond the limits of national jurisdictions. Facing the challenge of collaboratively implementing equitable and sustainable policies for these areas is not only vital for transnational relations and global sustainability, but for our future relationships with the ocean, and to each other.