Ocean and Polar Research ISSN:2234-7313(Online) Ocean and Polar Research

Climate change causes ocean warming, ocean acidification, sea-level rise, dynamic coastal risk, change of ecosystem structure and function, and degradation of ecosystem services. Not only that, but it has negatively impacted the well-being of people, society, and culture, including food security, water resources, water quality, livelihood, health, welfare, infrastructure, transport, tourism, recreation, and so on, especially by particularly degrading indigenous communities and generating an inequitable distribution of benefits and costs. As pointed out here, these adverse impacts of climate change on the ocean have been emphasized at the international and national levels. In contrast, the ocean field has been neglected in the climate change conversation for too long. However, since the UNFCCC COP 25, the ocean has been drawn into the discussion as a solution to address climate change. Moreover, the U.S. Congress recently unveiled a bill called the ‘Ocean-Based Climate Solution Act, OBCSA’ that reflects the new paradigm of the international regime. The comprehensive legislative bill includes elements related to climate inequity, a blue economy, and a community-led bottom-up policy mechanism, which will have a significant bearing on the ocean-climate legal system. Therefore, this study reviews the OBCSA and deduces implications with regard to the ocean-climate legal system in Korea.