Oceans and the law of the sea A/RES/74/19 of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement in Madrid, from 2 to 13 December 2019; 208. Notes with concern the severe impacts on coastal communities of extreme weather events, such as tropical cyclones and associated storm surges, and encourages cooperative actions by relevant United Nations bodies and organizations, including the World Meteorological Organization and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission with the advice of the Joint WMO-IOC Collaborative Board, 92 to assist States in improving forecasting, including impact-based forecasting, of such events and its application in multi-hazard early warning systems and risk management under a more integrated approach to addressing the impacts of flooding types from multiple sources and severe weather; 93 209. Also notes with concern the approximately 30 per cent increase in the acidity of ocean surface waters since the beginning of the industrial era 94 and the wide range of impacts associated with the continuing and alarming acidification of the world’s oceans, and urges States to make significant efforts to tackle the causes of ocean acidification, recognizing countries’ national circumstances and respective capabilities, and to further study and minimize its impacts, to enhance local, national, regional and global cooperation in this regard, including the sharing of relevant information and the development of worldwide capacity, including in developing countries, to measure ocean acidification, and to take steps to make marine ecosystems healthier and, as a result, more resilient, to the extent possible, to the impacts of ocean acidification; 210. Recalls that, in “The future we want”, States called for support for initiatives that address ocean acidification and the impacts of climate change on marine and coastal ecosystems and resources and in this regard reiterated the need to work collectively to prevent further ocean acidification, as well as to enhance the resilience of marine ecosystems and of the communities whose livelihoods depend on them, and to support marine scientific research, monitoring and observation of ocean acidification and particularly vulnerable ecosystems, including through enhanced international cooperation in this regard; 211. Recognizes the attention paid to ocean acidification at the fourteenth, eighteenth and nineteenth meetings of the Informal Consultative Process, in 2013, 2017 and 2018, respectively, and commits itself to continue to pay attention to this important issue, including by taking into account the First Global Integrated Marine Assessment (the first World Ocean Assessment), the ongoing work of the Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the scientific cooperation fostered by the Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network; 212. Notes the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, notes with concern its findings on the acidification of the oceans and the substantial risks to marine ecosystems, especially polar ecosystems, coral reefs, plankton and other organisms which have a calcareous exoskeleton, or a shell, like crustaceans, and the potentially detrimental consequences for fisheries and livelihoods, as well as the findings of the World Meteorological Organization contained in its annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, and notes its decision to foster collaboration with __________________ 92 93 94 19-21313 Established through World Meteorological Organization resolution 9 (Cg -18) and Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission resolution XXX -2, which also disbanded the Joint WMO-IOC Technical Commission for Oceanography and Marine Meteorology. See World Meteorological Organization resolution 15 (Cg-18). As stated in the 2013 report of Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on the physical science basis of climate change. 35/57