Coral reefs provide food and livelihoods for hundreds of millions of people as well as
harbour some of the highest regions of biodiversity in the ocean. However, overexploitation,
land-use change and other local anthropogenic threats to coral reefs have
left many degraded. Additionally, coral reefs are faced with the dual emerging threats
of ocean warming and acidification due to rising CO2 emissions, with dire predictions
that they will not survive the century. This review evaluates the impacts of climate
change on coral reef organisms, communities and ecosystems, focusing on the interactions
between climate change factors and local anthropogenic stressors. It then
explores the shortcomings of existing management and the move towards ecosystembased
management and resilience thinking, before highlighting the need for climate
change-ready marine protected areas (MPAs), reduction in local anthropogenic
stressors, novel approaches such as human-assisted evolution and the importance of
sustainable socialecological systems. It concludes that designation of climate changeready
MPAs, integrated with other management strategies involving stakeholders
and participation at multiple scales such as marine spatial planning, will be required
to maximise coral reef resilience under climate change. However, efforts to reduce
carbon emissions are critical if the long-term efficacy of local management actions is
to be maintained and coral reefs are to survive