Planet Ocean, a World of Cities: A Journey Around the Shores of the Anthropocene

Abstract

Oceans and cities are the most extraordinary public goods on this ageing, increasingly complex, uncertain and interlinked urbanising blue planet in the Anthropocene era. This chapter examines the megatrends which can impact the future of cities and seas as vibrant and vital dynamic places of changes and exchanges, in the aftermath of HABITAT III, the entry into force of the Paris Agreement, and the “Our Oceans, Our Future” high-level United Nations (UN) Conference. HABITAT III (Quito, October 2016), which convened for only the third time in 40 years, gave cities a dignified central place in the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, whereas the UN high-level conference “Our Oceans, Our Future” (New York, 5–9 June 2017) concluded with a Call for Action for the implementation of the SDG14, and the UN declared that 2021–2030 will be the decade of ocean science for sustainable development. The interconnected human ecosystems have had, and can continue to have, a major role in creating and distributing wealth and well-being in alliance with an inclusive regenerated blue planet. Strong sustainability asks not only for the total capital, composed of natural and physical, human, social, cultural and political, financial, built and digital capital, to be preserved, but for each of its components to be strengthened and transmitted to future generations. If any of the treasurable forms of capital is unsustainably managed, benefits are eroded and progress towards achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs) is undermined.

This first part sets the global scene and reviews demographic, socioeconomic, and environmental trends, opportunities and risks, political developments and technological breakthroughs towards realising the vision of not only SGD11 and SDG14, focusing on cities and oceans, but in interdependence and cross-implementation with all other SDGs. It presents the array of possible futures that invite cities to action for better lives for all citizens and the oceans, the “other 70%,” the common heritage of humankind and the immense but finite, overexploited yet underexplored ecosystem. It illuminates the ‘cities–oceans’ nexus and the responsibility to co-optimise eco-solutions across all parts of the trilemma of economy, environment, and the society, at times of polycrises.

Watercolour 3 New York, the City “Where the Future Comes to Rehearse” (M. Bloomberg)