THE OCEAN AWARDS 2018
Judges’ Special Award
OVE HOEGHGULDBERG
One of the foremost experts on how global warming is threatening the world’s oceans
WinnerWarming oceans exacerbate coral
bleaching and ultimately lead to the loss
of reefs. Ove Hoegh-Guldberg served as
the chief scientific advisor on the film
Chasing Coral, which took three and
a half years to make and involved around
700 hours of underwater filmingMore than two decades ago Ove Hoegh-Guldberg was one of
the first scientists to warn that coral bleaching was a sign of
climate change and global warming. No surprise then that he
appears in and was the chief scientific advisor for the Netflix
documentary Chasing Coral, winner of the Audience Award at
last year’s Sundance Festival.
The film warns that a temperature increase of 3.6 degrees
Fahrenheit is suicient to put marine life into a state akin to
“living with a constant fever,” hence the death of more than half
the world’s corals in the past three decades.
A professor of marine science at the University of Queensland,
Hoegh-Guldberg is also the inaugural director of its Global
Change Institute, which describes itself as “an independent
source of innovative research, ideas, policy and advice for
addressing the challenges of a changing world.” As one of the
foremost experts on how global warming is threatening the
world’s oceans, he was lead author of the chapter on the ocean
in the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, and has advised
organizations as diverse as the Great Barrier Reef Foundation,
the World Bank and the Royal Society in London.