Emerging climate-smart governance through maritime spatial planning in northern Europe

Climate change (CC) impacts on marine areas make it increasingly urgent to address mitigation and adaptation actions in maritime spatial planning (MSP). Despite growing interest in ‘climate-smart’ MSP, the integration of CC objectives within MSP practice is still limited. Using selected North and Baltic Sea jurisdictions as examples, this study examines how integrative governance features in MSP enable CC to be addressed. Based on a qualitative analysis of empirical materials by MSP practitioners, we find that integrative climate-smart governance is emerging in an MSP context while being largely focused on the inclusion of CC concerns only. Coordination and prioritisation are still developing, tools for modelling CC impacts are inconsistently applied, and reporting is largely absent. By linking climate-smart MSP with integrative governance theory, we highlight the importance of strong governance frameworks for effective CC policies integration. Further research is needed on key enablers and barriers to advancing climate-smart ocean governance.