Abstract
Climate action is not constrained by a scarcity of options, but by how technologies, incentives, and power steer which innovations are scaled, which risks tolerated, and whose futures prioritised. Here, we apply a functional governance diagnostic to current popular experiments in ocean-based climate action. By systematically disentangling the functional dynamics shaping marine-climate governance, we identify strategic leverage points to responsibly navigate climate action in the ocean.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Dr Essam Yassin Mohammed for stimulating discussions throughout the development of this manuscript. Funding was provided by the Australian Research Council through a Laureate Fellowship T.H.M. (FL 250100132), a Discovery Award to T.H.M (DP 220103921), a US Science for Nature and People Partnership (SNAPP) Working Group to T.H.M, and a WorldFish-University of Melbourne Fellowship to R.P.S.
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The authors declare no financial or non-financial competing interests. T.H.M. is an Associate Editor at npj Climate Action but was not involved in the editorial process or peer-review of this manuscript.
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Streit, R.P., Nash, K.L., Lawless, S. et al. Decoding governance functions to navigate ocean-based climate action. npj Clim. Action (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44168-026-00400-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44168-026-00400-3
