Turning Risk into Resilience and Resilience into Opportunity

Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance

Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance

Posted on Jun 8, 2026
World Oceans Day 2026: Turning Risk into Resilience and Resilience into Opportunity

This article was originally published by the Observer Research Foundation, as part of the ‘Governing the Oceans: Rethinking Access and Equity‘ series. Authored by Karen Sack, Executive Director of the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance (ORRAA).

The Ocean is our planet’s greatest natural asset, a US$24 trillion engine of prosperity that is currently hiding in plain sight. While the Ocean receives less than one percent of global climate finance, because the benefits that flow from our seas are largely out of sight and out of mind, this funding gap is one of the most significant untapped investment frontiers of our time.

World Ocean Day 2026 serves as a powerful reminder that by correcting this imbalance and shifting our perspective from viewing the Ocean as a resource for extraction to recognising it as living capital, we can unlock a staggering US$15.5 trillion in economic benefits by 2050. Growing a capital market for the Ocean, investing in marine protected areas (MPAs), blue carbon ecosystems, sustainable aquaculture and fisheries, offshore renewable energy, blue tech and ‘ridge-to-reef’ solutions like waste management and incorporating Nature-based Solutions (NbS) into coastal infrastructure, are key. Building the investable pipelines for this sector now opens a window of adaptation opportunity. It also closes the door to ocean and climate risks that could strand assets and devastate coastal communities, particularly those in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and developing country coastal states. In this ‘Decade of Implementation’, action to build resilient coastal communities must be accelerated alongside a healthy, regenerating, and vibrant ocean.

The Ocean Finance Challenge

The primary hurdle facing ocean finance today is not a lack of innovative solutions, but the gulf between large-scale institutional capital interests and the needs of communities on the front lines of change. Funds and initiatives often operate in silos, separate from one another, with different metrics and standards. Actors from different parts of the finance and environmental ecosystem don’t always understand one another.

Fitting the pieces of this puzzle together into a coherent whole is a challenge that few have been able to meet. The pieces include the perceived risk and uncertainty of this sector, relatively small and disaggregated ticket sizes (investments) with high transaction costs that deter investment, and enterprises that have been built off grant funding and don’t necessarily meet the key performance indicators or returns expected from private sector investors looking for market-rate returns. The result is a “missing middle” financial “valley of death” where brilliant community-led initiatives in the Global South struggle to bridge the gap between initial grant funding and the scale or risk profile required by impact, venture, or institutional investors. A coherent financial architecture is essential to ensure that global capital flows support local resilience and cultural security.

The result is a “missing middle” financial “valley of death” where brilliant community-led initiatives in the Global South struggle to bridge the gap between initial grant funding and the scale or risk profile required by impact, venture, or institutional investors.

Bridging this finance gap requires establishing the enabling conditions where “beachfront” innovations are nurtured into “boardroom-ready” assets, while also forging connections between disparate actors, thereby building certainty and highlighting opportunity. This requires radical collaboration through a multi-sector approach that connects frontline actors, governments, and institutional investors to create a high-integrity capital market for the Ocean. This is the mission of the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance (ORRAA). It works with its 140 members from governments, insurance, finance, multilaterals, civil society, and academia to activate at least US$500 million in investment through finance and insurance products to build the resilience of 250 million climate-vulnerable coastal people in the Global South.

Knowing that the barriers to ocean investment, including fragmented project pipelines, gaping finance gaps, weak policy signals, and limited investor capacity, do not self-correct, ORRAA works with over 40 project delivery partners operating in geographies across the Global South. These projects make a clear case for the investment opportunities. Proof of concept exists. The priority now is to replicate and scale proven solutions. To move finance at the pace needed to tackle the climate and biodiversity crises requires that we stop focusing on pilots that test ideas, and instead double down on what we know works, and scale up action.

Valuing Nature and the Ocean’s Biological Carbon Pump

Regenerating coastal and ocean biodiversity to build resilient marine ecosystems sits at the heart of this. Incorporating the value of nature into capital markets as essential infrastructure rather than as an unaccounted-for externality is key. For example, the sinking of organic matter in the Ocean sequesters approximately 2.8 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually. This capacity is equivalent to removing more than one-quarter of annual human-driven fossil fuel emissions. The total value of this natural CO2 capture is projected to exceed US$2.2 trillion by 2030. Yet this value is currently ignored by the finance sector.

This amazing suite of biological, physical, and chemical processes doesn’t require artificial or tech-driven marine CO2 removal schemes. To work well, the carbon biological pump simply requires a thriving, healthy ocean.

What it needs is for the global community to swiftly implement the agreed global biodiversity framework, establishing marine protected areas (MPAs) – essentially national parks at sea – that cover 30 percent of the Ocean by 2030 (30×30). Nearly half of the world’s ocean fish catch is landed by small-scale fisheries, which are also the world’s largest employer, providing crucial protein to coastal populations in SIDS and developing country coastal states. Yet these needs are often trumped by those requiring these countries to export their catch to earn foreign exchange dollars to pay for fuel and imports. SIDS, in particular, have also taken action to establish MPAs in their waters. A capital market for the ocean should reward such actions.

Fully protected MPAs effectively act as a “climate bank,” restoring the Ocean’s carbon-carrying capacity. By allowing marine life to flourish undisturbed, they also rebuild fish stocks and nurture marine diversity.

MPAs are the most cost-effective and ecologically safe marine CO2 removal solution for the planet. Since nature has been adapting to change for millennia, their benefits are tried, tested, and clear, with solid modern-day science backing them up. Fully protected MPAs effectively act as a “climate bank,” restoring the Ocean’s carbon-carrying capacity. By allowing marine life to flourish undisturbed, they also rebuild fish stocks and nurture marine diversity. Species biomass inside a fully protected area can increase by up to 400 percent in just ten years, providing a natural, regenerative opportunity that any asset manager would covet. Putting a premium on actions to protect marine life is both common sense and makes long-term business sense.

Effective and Equitable Implementation: 30×30 and Beyond

The 30×30 target will fail unless it is inclusive of the people who depend on these waters most. As such, fair and equitable prosperity is a prerequisite for success. SIDS manage 40 percent of the world’s coral reefs and 30 percent of all ocean real estate. They contribute the least to global emissions yet face average losses of over 50 percent of their GDP directly because of climate-related shocks.

Gender equity also sits at the core of resilience, since women are disproportionately vulnerable. Governance must empower coastal people through tools like the world’s first Small-Scale Fisheries Impact Bond and innovative insurance products through parametric insurance, which now provide payouts triggered by hazardous weather, incentivising fishers to stay safe while reducing damage to equipment and the environment.

A New Investment Thesis for the Ocean

As we look toward 2030, we must adopt a New Investment Thesis. This demands a dramatic shift away from destructive, extractive activities that no longer make economic or environmental sense. Governments must integrate ocean capital into national accounts, while multilaterals must expand de-risking frameworks.

By aligning finance, governance, and innovation, the Ocean can be transformed from a passive victim of climate change into an active, investable solution and transformative economic engine driving a more prosperous, resilient, and adaptive future for all.

The window for action is still open, but it is closing fast. Nations can no longer afford to think of climate change and biodiversity loss in their own distinct silos, but as systematic, material matters of global economic security and human wellbeing.

Now more than ever, the need is to be patient with capital but impatient with action. By aligning finance, governance, and innovation, the Ocean can be transformed from a passive victim of climate change into an active, investable solution and transformative economic engine driving a more prosperous, resilient, and adaptive future for all.

© Observer Research Foundation, May 2026

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