Professor Steve Widdicombe

Plymouth Marine Laboratory, UK

Professor Steve Widdicombe is the Director of Science and Deputy Chief Executive of Plymouth Marine Laboratory, UK. Steve is a marine ecologist with over 30 years of experience in using field observations and large manipulative experiments to address issues relating to marine ecology, climate change, biodiversity and ecosystem function.

He has been instrumental in developing the understanding of the effects of ocean acidification on the marine environment, is Co-Chair of the Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network (GOA-ON) Executive Council and helped to establish its North East Atlantic Hub. The GOA-ON is a collaborative international network with around 1,000 scientists from more than 100 countries, to detect and understand the drivers and impacts of ocean acidification. The network is fundamental to providing early warning of the impacts of ocean acidification on natural ecosystems, wild and aquaculture fisheries, coastal protection, tourism and local economies. Steve represented the GOA-ON on OSPAR’s Intersessional Correspondence Group on ocean acidification and was an author of the ocean acidification chapter in the 2023 Quality Status Report (Ocean Acidification (ospar.org)).

He co-leads the UN Ocean Decade endorsed programme ‘Ocean Acidification Research for Sustainability’ (GOA-ON : OARS), which aims to provide society with the observational and scientific evidence needed to sustainably identify, monitor, mitigate and adapt to ocean acidification; from local to global scales. Steve regularly contributes to high level policy discussions such as at the UN Climate Change meetings the UNFCCC COPs, as moderator of a 2022 UN Ocean Conference Dialogue; through Co-Chairing a previous CBD international expert group meeting and presenting at the CBD COP15.

Steve is currently a member of the UN Convention for Biological Diversity (CBD) ad-hoc Technical Expert Group on Indicators for the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the UN Ocean Decade Conference (2024) Programme Committee and the UN 3rd World Ocean Assessment Pool of Experts.