Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg BusinessWeek with Karl Messer and Tim
Speaker 1: Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio. Well, as I was praying for
Speaker 1: our next guest, I came across a great Bloomberg opinion
Speaker 1: piece by our columnist Laura Williams. Check out what she
Speaker 1: wrote earlier this year. She said, We've got a lot
Speaker 1: to thank the ocean. For three billion people depend on
Speaker 1: its ecosystems for food and economic security. It's also helped
Speaker 1: to mitigate climate change, absorbing ninety three percent of the
Speaker 1: heat trapped by greenhouse gases and about thirty percent of
Speaker 1: the carbon dioxid admitted by burning fossil fuels so far.
Speaker 1: If we didn't have the ocean, we'd be in a
Speaker 1: much stickier situation. Well, next guest knows all too well
Speaker 1: the importance of the ocean. Doctor Deborah Brosnan is a
Speaker 1: marine scientist in environmental risk expert. She's also the head
Speaker 1: of the scientific consulting company Deborah Brosnan and Associates. She's
Speaker 1: just returned from the Global Citizen Forum. It ran alongside
Speaker 1: the UN Climate Change Conference COP twenty eight in the UAE.
Speaker 1: Doctor Brosnan joins US from Washington, DC this afternoon. Good
Speaker 1: to have you with us this afternoon, doctor Brosnan. What
Speaker 1: did you find in COP? How did you How were
Speaker 1: the vibes? I mean, I've heard in scenes news reports
Speaker 1: about sort of both sides of the spectrum here.
Speaker 2: So COP is very interesting. So the first week of
Speaker 2: COP was extremely hopeful. I came into COP and then
Speaker 2: day one I felt optimistic. All of a sudden, we
Speaker 2: had two nations, UAE and Germany pledged one hundred million
Speaker 2: dollars each towards loss and damage, which is really to
Speaker 2: help small island, developing states and emerging nations deal with
Speaker 2: the loss and the damage from climate change that they
Speaker 2: didn't cause. So there was a huge level of optimism,
Speaker 2: and week one we saw that develop more and more
Speaker 2: and that people were very positive. Week two, which is
Speaker 2: what we're coming to the close of right now, which
Speaker 2: is when really a lot of the negotiations started, the
Speaker 2: mood really began to change and then a COP felt
Speaker 2: like one hundred thousand people all running around talking but
Speaker 2: not necessarily doing. And what we're seeing right now, as
Speaker 2: you know, we've gone into overtime at COP twenty eight
Speaker 2: because nations are battling whether to include in the language
Speaker 2: to phase out fossil fuels, or simply to say it
Speaker 2: would be a good idea and it could be done
Speaker 2: in this way. So COP twenty eight has been I think,
Speaker 2: like many cops, starting strong with a lot of hope
Speaker 2: and then getting mirred, mired in politics and marred in
Speaker 2: nations really battling for different interests. On the other hand,
Speaker 2: it's fair to say that everybody at COP, everybody knows
Speaker 2: we're in a climate crisis, and everybody knows that something
Speaker 2: must be done urgently. The challenge is in the agreements.
Speaker 3: Why is it so important to protect the oceans. Is
Speaker 3: it about the sea life within the ocean, or are
Speaker 3: we more a cop talking about how it relates to
Speaker 3: climate change a COP.
Speaker 2: We're talking more about how it relates to climate change,
Speaker 2: because that is the focus of COP. But the reason
Speaker 2: it's really important to protect the oceans goes even beyond
Speaker 2: copp and climate. The ocean's cover three quarters of our
Speaker 2: planet and we literally depend on them for they produce
Speaker 2: half of the planet's oxygen, and in terms of climate change,
Speaker 2: they're absorbed over ninety percent of the excess heat. Now
Speaker 2: the oceans support three billion people more or less indirectly.
Speaker 2: The level of which we depend on the oceans is
Speaker 2: something I think most people don't fully understand. Along the coastline,
Speaker 2: where you have coral reefs, where you have oyster reefs
Speaker 2: and sand dunes, those nature based solutions, those nature natural
Speaker 2: habitats actually buffer us against sea level rise and climate change.
Speaker 2: So our relationship with the ocean is fundamental to our survival,
Speaker 2: and the challenge really is that people don't fully understand it.
Speaker 2: So our oceans really if they were a country, they
Speaker 2: drank seventh in the world, so they would be a
Speaker 2: major presence at cop But yet there the lowest evolved
Speaker 2: funding of the sustainable development goals. So we really have
Speaker 2: to up our attention to the ocean and we can.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they do seem like an afterthought now that you know.
Speaker 1: In preparing for this, I kind of felt like, you know,
Speaker 1: we don't necessarily talk about the ocean a lot in
Speaker 1: the context of climate change. We talk so much about
Speaker 1: greenhouse gas emissions, and we talk about a transition away
Speaker 1: from fossil fuels, but we talk about forests, of course,
Speaker 1: but oceans we don't talk about it in the same way.
Speaker 1: Ocean shot. Now, this is a really cool project that
Speaker 1: I want to make sure we're covering, use AI cameras,
Speaker 1: explain what it is and what you've discovered just over
Speaker 1: the last year.
Speaker 2: So ocean Shot was designed to focus on the a
Speaker 2: little bit more. I spoke about the value of coral
Speaker 2: reefs in providing habitats, in breaking wave action so that
Speaker 2: we keep sand on the beach, protect coastal properties, and
Speaker 2: support fisheries and biodiversity. So ocean Shot was designed to
Speaker 2: literally design the kind of coral reef structure that we
Speaker 2: need to have an our oceans for today in the future,
Speaker 2: the kind of habitats they provide, and then to build
Speaker 2: and create those structures and put them in the sea.
Speaker 2: And we deployed our first ocean Shot in our Antigue
Speaker 2: and Barbuda last year and we watch we've planted it
Speaker 2: with nine different species of corals. But over that one year,
Speaker 2: we put artificial artificial intelligence cameras on those reefs to
Speaker 2: see what kind of species we've had and what kind
Speaker 2: of species we're showing up and use the AI technology
Speaker 2: to identify those species. So within a year we had
Speaker 2: thirty six species of fish start to come in and
Speaker 2: literally set up home in our modules along with octopus,
Speaker 2: along with lobster and a host of other species. And
Speaker 2: what it really showed us with the cameras is that
Speaker 2: once we provide the habitat for species, they do come.
Speaker 2: Those thirty six species of fish would not have existed
Speaker 2: without these ocean shot reefs. And the other thing we're
Speaker 2: learning is that we can restore these these reef habitats
Speaker 2: these reefs in a way that is scalable and transferable,
Speaker 2: particularly emerging nations where we find most of these coral reefs.
Speaker 2: So it's been a fascinating experiment and we're planning on
Speaker 2: doing some more.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean thirty six new species of fish. I'm
Speaker 3: curious what does progress look like when it comes to
Speaker 3: ocean restoration. Is there an element of irreversible damage to
Speaker 3: coral reefs or can we actually make progress and restore
Speaker 3: reefs to a level that you know there were years ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that that's a really important question as
Speaker 2: to what do we define as success and progress. I
Speaker 2: think corals are in trouble this year, in particular, we
Speaker 2: had water temperatures one hundred and one degrees fahrenheit off Florida,
Speaker 2: and that's, by the way, the temperature of a hot tub,
Speaker 2: so corals were immersed in that and we saw a
Speaker 2: huge amount of coral bleaching immortality. So we're working very
Speaker 2: hard to restore resilient corals. But the other part of
Speaker 2: success is to say, with these habitats that have been
Speaker 2: either destroyed or degraded and literally collapsed, that success to
Speaker 2: me is restoring and creating habitats that are viable into
Speaker 2: the future that will transition to the climate change that
Speaker 2: we're having, and where we start to see communities, biological
Speaker 2: communities of fish invertebrates that are important to the reef
Speaker 2: but also important to us, either for food or recreation
Speaker 2: or other Even medicines today start to come back and
Speaker 2: establish themselves, but also persist because there's no doubt we
Speaker 2: are going through a huge transition in the earth. There
Speaker 2: is no way we're going back to the reefs of
Speaker 2: thirty forty fifty years ago any more that we're going
Speaker 2: back to the world of thirty forty years ago. We
Speaker 2: have to build for the future.
Speaker 1: We have thirty seconds left and can and with an
Speaker 1: optimistic note, what makes you optimistic about the future.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm hugely optimistic because I can see that whatever's
Speaker 2: happening in copp When you look around you, scientists like
Speaker 2: me are taking action and doing work. I just did
Speaker 2: an underwater panel with Paddy. They're working on one billion divers,
Speaker 2: actually doing work in the ocean to change things. The
Speaker 2: upcoming generation takes for granted that we're going to take action.
Speaker 2: I'm hugely optimistic that we are going to get through
Speaker 2: this in a positive way and have a better world.
Speaker 1: Well really appreciate you joining us, especially after so much
Speaker 1: travel over the last few days. Doctor Deborah Brosnan, marine
Speaker 1: scientist and environmental risk expert, the head of the scientific
Speaker 1: consulting company Deborah Brosnan and Associates