Consumption, technology and wellbeing

This policy brief highlights the insights subjective well-being metrics bring to the understanding of the relationship between consumption and happiness. We explore this topic in the advent of expected significant price increases under the double impact of higher climate volatility and the costly transition to cleaner production and transportation technologies, as it is the case with maritime transport.

People appear to be sensitive to price increases, on top of the real purchasing power of price and income changes regarding their happiness. Moreover, the type of consumption matters, with a lower marginal effect of material consumption on wellbeing compared to experiential consumption. Health, social relationships and local environment are considered as main drivers of their wellbeing and de-emphasise consumption.

A key outcome is that the gains of additional consumption decrease with the level of consumption, making consumption reductions less painful at the upper end of the revenue scale. Rich societies should be actively working on further decoupling material consumption and well-being by consciously exposing the elusive nature of the well-being boost we get from conspicuous consumption (goods others can readily observe: car, clothing, house, watches) and provide incentives for more socially and environmentally responsible modes of consumption.

Including Coastal Ecosystems in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)

The effects of climate change are growing and are already having dramatic consequences, particularly for coastal populations in developing countries (IPCC, 2018). In 2015, by adopting the Paris Agreement, the international community committed to reducing the magnitude of ongoing climate change through the development of national action plans, called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Five years after signing the Agreement, it appears that the States must undertake drastic efforts to raise their climate ambitions. The ocean, which plays a key role in stabilizing the climate, offers many mitigation and adaptation solutions (Gattuso et al., 2018). Among them, proper management, conservation and restoration of coastal ecosystems can help meet both the challenges posed by climate change and the decline in biodiversity, while increasing human well-being. This policy brief explores the challenges of the inclusion in NDCs of such actions based on emblematic coastal ecosystems: mangroves, coral reefs, seagrasses and salt-marshes.

Underwater noise

There are increasing concerns about the impact of underwater noise on marine life spurred by the steady rise in the number and variety of human activities at sea. In particular, chronic noise levels from commercial shipping have increased significantly in the past 60 years and they are set to continue to rise in the coming years. In response to this concern, the United Nations has signed a voluntary commitment to reduce underwater noise (#OceanAction18553), which recognizes the negative impact that shipping noise can have on marine life. In this policy brief, we examine the role of ports in reducing this type of noise and illustrate our findings through a case study of the port of Le Havre.

Questions about Marine Protected Areas (MPAs)

The problem of MPAs is not the lack of knowledge about the marine environment, but managing of people, that is, managing the different uses in these areas. Thus, it is much easier to identify MPAs than to manage them effectively, not only in waters under national jurisdiction, but even more so in areas beyond national jurisdiction. Another problem is not enough collegial and transparent scientific committees to ensure good scientific governance of MPAs.

Monitoring Sustainable Development Goal 14 on the ocean

This policy brief explains the role of Sustainable Development Goal 14 on the Ocean and points to the related major initiatives of the United Nations through a short interview with Vladimir Ryabinin, Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission. It sets out the relevance of indicators for monitoring the SDG 14 agenda, illustrates progress in this area globally and nationally in France and South Africa, goes over certain coordination challenges and highlights future areas of research.