The ocean and global risk
There are several definitions of systemic risk, but the common thread is multiple, interconnected risks which can do considerable harm to humanity and ecosystems and therefore, the economy.
The climate crisis, worsening inequality, biodiversity loss and geopolitical tensions are now finally being recognised as systemic risks influencing economic resilience. However, despite regulating the conditions under which human societies and economies function, the ocean remains, mostly, absent from discussion and decisions.
One of the issues, in my opinion, is that ocean remains largely confined within the ocean space. What I mean by this is that the importance and threats to the ocean are discussed extensively within marine science, conservation and education communities, but are far less integrated into the mainstream in relation to economics and governance.
We are, rightly, becoming more concerned with systemic risk, as we see evidence of cascading crises, compounding shocks and instability across multiple systems at once. Climate risk is now more likely to be considered when talking about economic resilience, supply chains and geopolitics, while ecological instability is being recognised as economically and politically disruptive. Rising adaptation costs, insurance withdrawal, and food price volatility are pushing questions of resilience into the centre of leadership and investment discussions. So why is the ocean still (mostly) missing?
I have read multiple reports discussing climate and systemic risk where the ocean receives comparatively limited attention despite its fundamental role. The ocean is still treated as the sub-committee, of even environmental policy, rather than a priority that is relevant to across sectors.
By this, I mean that the ocean is embedded throughout the global risk landscape - finance, health, energy, food, security and more, but this dependency often remains invisible within decision-making. The way risks are framed influences where attention goes, where investment flows, what gets measured and ultimately what societies prepare for. Many organisations remain highly dependent on ocean-regulated systems without recognising that dependency explicitly. For example, food retailers, insurers and logistics companies all rely on relatively stable climatic and ocean conditions to maintain agricultural productivity, shipping reliability and supply-chain continuity, even though these dependencies are rarely framed as ocean-related risks.
If the ocean remains peripheral in our thinking, then many of the risks emerging through ocean degradation remain poorly understood too. And that, to me, is one of the important ocean literacy gaps.
The ocean absorbs c.90% of the excess heat generated by greenhouse gas emissions and redistributes it through major currents, like the Gulf Stream, but absorbing this much heat comes at a cost. A warmer ocean influences atmospheric circulation, rainfall patterns, storm intensity and marine heatwaves. We are already seeing impacts on ecosystems, fisheries and coastal communities globally. Ocean warming affects marine productivity, fish abundance and spawning, with direct implications for food security and livelihoods. It is also the world largest carbon sink and has absorbed a third of the carbon dioxide we have emitted since the industrial revolution.
The weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, has gained more attention recently because of its potential implications for European weather, agriculture and climate. There is broad scientific agreement that the AMOC is likely to weaken this century, but greater uncertainty remains around the scale of weakening, the proximity of any tipping threshold (critical thresholds where gradual environmental changes cause a system to abruptly reorganize into a completely new, often irreversible state) and the timing of more abrupt change. Climate models are sophisticated but tipping dynamics and cascading effects in complex Earth systems dynamics are inherently difficult to forecast with precision. That uncertainty is part of the risk: ignoring low-probability but high-impact changes could carry profound consequences. Ecological, geopolitical and economic systems are now interacting in increasingly unpredictable ways.
The ocean also facilitates global trade, with c.80% of world trade moving by sea. Disruption to maritime chokepoints rapidly affects energy prices, supply chains and inflation. Recent instability around the Strait of Hormuz and Red Sea shipping routes demonstrates how quickly marine disruption cascades through economies. A disruption to shipping routes can affect fertiliser supply, agricultural productivity and ultimately food prices and inflation, proving these are not distant environmental issues operating separately from the economy and our everyday lives.
This is why ocean literacy must extend beyond its important foundations in education, public engagement and marine conservation. Despite the ocean influencing the operating conditions under which economies and societies function, many leaders and organisations still do not fully understand this dependency.
You only have to read the recent reports from the World Economic Forum or the Climate Change Committee (see refs) to understand increasing concern around instability, resilience, adaptation pressures and technological disruption. Climate adaptation, resilience and national security are converging into one conversation. Tangentially, the sustainability conversation is evolving. For years much of the focus has been on emissions, carbon accounting, ESG reporting and disclosure frameworks. However, the language is moving towards resilience, adaptation, exposure, security and systemic stability. This reflects growing recognition that we are no longer navigating a contained environmental challenge, but a period of interacting ecological, geopolitical and economic instability.
Part of the problem of the ocean being missing, I think, is that we remain heavily terrestrially biased. Nature discussions mostly focus on land use, biodiversity and carbon, while the ocean is treated separately as a marine issue rather than part of the Earth system regulating climate and economic conditions. This creates strategic blind spots which distort assumptions about resilience and stability. Financial institutions discuss supply-chain resilience without fully recognising ocean dependency, while governments discuss food security without adequately considering changing marine productivity. If these dependencies were more fully understood, decisions around investment, trade, insurance, adaptation planning and food could be approached differently. Ocean literacy improves how organisations interpret systemic risk. Disruptions that may appear isolated, from shipping instability and food price volatility to fisheries decline and coastal erosion, become more recognisable as interacting consequences of stress within ocean-regulated systems. This does not eliminate uncertainty, but it can support more informed planning, resilience thinking and strategic decision-making.
Private capital is already being exposed to these risks, even if this is not yet fully recognised. Coastal exposure, insurance withdrawal, shipping disruption and ecological degradation all have implications for investment resilience. Disruptions to maritime trade routes or increasing climate-related losses in coastal regions can rapidly affect asset values, infrastructure planning, insurance markets and portfolio stability. This is particularly important for family offices, pension funds and investors trying to navigate resilience in an unstable world. Capital allocation decisions made today will help determine the physical and economic structures of the future, so why don’t many invest in the broader understanding needed to assess ocean-related dependencies and vulnerabilities properly? In many ways, capital allocation decisions are now also ecological decisions. Decisions about food, energy, coastal development and supply chains are simultaneously influencing ecological resilience and future adaptation pressures.
Much of modern economic planning and governance developed under assumptions of relative environmental stability, where risks could be treated as predictable and, mostly, manageable. However, that assumption no longer holds true. Climate shocks now cascade across political, economic and social systems, while governance struggles to keep pace. Ocean literacy remains poorly integrated across sectors, and ecological instability is still too frequently framed as an environmental rather than a systems issue.
Meanwhile, the ocean is degrading faster than we are adapting. The ocean does not negotiate with quarterly returns, reporting frameworks or election cycles. Delayed action increases adaptation pressures and narrows future options. Some ecological changes may become irreversible long before policy can respond adequately. As stated in the Climate Change Committee report, this is now a societal adaptation challenge.
This is not an argument for despair. We can adapt, but adaptation requires new forms of literacy and a greater capacity to understand systems thinking. The global ocean literacy movement has made enormous contributions through education, public engagement, stewardship and marine conservation, with extraordinary work taking place across schools, communities, NGOs and scientific networks worldwide. However, a gap remains in translating ocean understanding into the institutions shaping finance, governance and economic resilience.
Leadership now means becoming more comfortable with complexity, uncertainty and interdependence. Leadership of this new economy requires ocean systems literacy. I am not suggested leaders need to become marine scientists, but they do need to understand how a healthy ocean is necessary for their organisations, investments, communities and the economy.
This is where the Ocean Literacy Project places its primary focus: helping translate ocean literacy into better decision-making that will positively impact people and planet.
The next challenge is understanding what this means in practice. What does ocean-literate leadership look like within governments, finance, education and business? How might this influence the decisions that are determining our future? That’s for the next article.
References
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2019), IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate
World Economic Forum (2026) Global Risks Report https://www.weforum.org/publications/global-risks-report-2026/
Climate Change Committee, A Well Adapted UK (2026) https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/a-well-adapted-uk/
Leanne Hepburn