The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission
(UNESCO-IOC), the International Union for Conservation of Nature, Conservation
International, Indonesia, Costa Rica and Ecuador are organizing a Blue Carbon
side event at Rio +20. The event will discuss and present various tools
building on the work of Blue Carbon policy framework.
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Blue
carbon: a tool to mitigate climate change and preserve key marine and coastal
ecosystems
Restored
mangroves around a shrimp farm in Batangas, Verde Island Passage, Philippines. © Conservation International/photo
by Giuseppe Di Carlo.
23
April 2012 / UNESCO - The 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable development (Rio+20) is an
opportunity to set a new agenda for a sustainable future. As delegates meet in
New York for the second round of informal negotiations on the zero draft of the
Rio+20 outcome document, a side event was organized to inform them of the
potential value of coastal ecosystem conservation through blue carbon
initiatives, as a means to ensure long term sustainability of coastal areas and
green economic development whilst effectively mitigating climate change.
Ecosystem services provided by coastal and marine habitats are of
crucial importance for food security and poverty eradication, as well as many
of the sectors currently driving the economies of coastal nations.
Some of these ecosystems, such as mangroves, salt marshes and seagrass
meadows, beyond having high biodiversity values and providing breeding grounds
and nurseries for fisheries, can also play a key role in mitigating global
climate change through their ability to store carbon. Anthropogenic
carbon emissions in the atmosphere and oceans are the most significant cause of
global climate change. Curbing climate change means both removing carbon from
the atmosphere and oceans and avoiding new carbon emissions.
Total carbon deposits per square kilometer in these coastal systems may be up to five times the carbon stored in tropical forests, due to their ability to absorb, or sequester, carbon at rates up to 50 times those of the same area of tropical forest.
These Blue Carbon ecosystems are being degraded and destroyed at a
rapid pace along the world’s coastlines, resulting in globally significant
emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and ocean and contributing to climate
change. Draining a typical coastal wetland, such as a mangrove or marsh,
releases 0.25 million tons of carbon dioxide per square kilometer for every
meter of soil that’s lost. Global data shows that seagrasses, tidal
marshes, and mangroves are being degraded or destroyed along the world’s
coastlines at a rapid pace. In fact, between 1980 and 2005, 35,000 square
kilometers of mangroves were removed globally – an area the size of the nation
of Belgium.
There is growing evidence and consensus that the management of coastal
Blue Carbon ecosystems, through avoided emissions, conservation, restoration
and sustainable use has strong potential as a transformational tool in
effective global natural carbon management. Scientific understanding of carbon
sequestration and potential emissions from coastal ecosystems is now sufficient
to develop effective carbon management, policy, and conservation incentives for
coastal Blue Carbon.
With appropriate and timely action through the Rio+20 negotiating
process, increased recognition of the importance of coastal Blue Carbon systems
will leverage improved management and regulation of coastal areas and provide a
basis for incentives, including financial mechanisms, to conserve or restore these
systems and avoid and manage emissions as well as impacts, i.e. support
mitigation and adaptation to climate change.
This side event was organized by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic
Commission (UNESCO-IOC), the International Union for Conservation of Nature,
Conservation International, Indonesia, Costa Rica and Ecuador to provide timely
information to delegates during the process. This event will be the occasion to
discuss and present a number innovative tools building on the work of the Blue Carbon
Policy Framework. Key questions that will be addressed in the framework of
Rio+20 will also be discussed, such as:
- Should the UNCSD set up a process to promote coastal habitat protection and restoration targets for States with clear timelines and commitments?
- Should a Green Economy approach include the creation of financial sustainability mechanisms, economic valuation (both market and non-market values) of key coastal habitats, and incentives to promote change to more sustainable uses such as ecotourism and small-scale fisheries?
- How can institutional capacity at the international and national levels be improved to implement tools through subsidizing land / ocean use change to more sustainable methods, monitoring and reporting implementation, and building capacity through training?
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Event details available from:
