Protecting Antarctic blue carbon: as marine ice retreats can the law fill the gap? (original) (raw)
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Climate Policy Protecting Antarctic blue carbon: as marine ice retreats can the law fill the gap
Climate Policy, 2019
As marine-ice around Antarctica retracts, a vast ‘blue carbon’ sink, in the form of living biomass, is emerging. Properly protected and promoted Antarctic blue carbon will form the world’s largest natural negative feedback on climate change. However, fulfilling this promise may be challenging, given the uniqueness of the region and the legal systems that govern it. In this interdisciplinary study, we explain: the global significance of Antarctic blue carbon to international carbon mitigation efforts; the urgent need for international legal protections for areas where it is emerging; and the hurdles that need to be overcome to realize those goals. In order to progress conservation efforts past political blockages we recommend the development of an inter-instrument governance framework that quantifies the sequestration value of Antarctic blue carbon for attribution to states’ climate mitigation commitments under the 2015 Paris Agreement. Key policy insights - Blue-carbon emergence around Antarctica’s coastlines will potentially store up to 160,000,000 tonnes of carbon annually. - Blue-carbon will emerge in areas of rich biomass that will make it vulnerable to harvesting and other human activities; it is essential to incentivise conserving, rather than commercial exploitation of newly ice-free areas of the Southern Ocean. - Antarctic blue carbon is a practical and prime candidate to build a cooperative, inter-instrument, non-market mitigation around; this should be considered at the ‘blue COP’ UN Climate change discussions in Spain. - Allowing Antarctic fishing states to account for the carbon storage value of blue carbon zones through a non-market approach under the Paris Agreement could provide a vital incentive to their protection under the Antarctic Treaty System. - The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research would be the ideal body to facilitate the necessary connections between the relevant climate and Antarctic governance regimes.
Global Change Biology, 2020
Precautionary conservation and cooperative global governance are needed to protect Antarctic blue carbon: the world's largest increasing natural form of carbon storage with high sequestration potential. As patterns of ice loss around Antarctica become more uniform, there is an underlying increase in carbon capture-to-storage-to-sequestration on the seafloor. The amount of carbon captured per unit area is increasing and the area available to blue carbon is also increasing. Carbon seques-tration could further increase under moderate (+1°C) ocean warming, contrary to decreasing global blue carbon stocks elsewhere. For example, in warmer waters, mangroves and seagrasses are in decline and benthic organisms are close to their physiological limits, so a 1°C increase in water temperature could push them above
Global Change Biology, 2020
Precautionary conservation and cooperative global governance are needed to protect Antarctic blue carbon: the world's largest increasing natural form of carbon storage with high sequestration potential. As patterns of ice loss around Antarctica become more uniform, there is an underlying increase in carbon capture-to-storage-to-sequestration on the seafloor. The amount of carbon captured per unit area is increasing and the area available to blue carbon is also increasing. Carbon seques-tration could further increase under moderate (+1°C) ocean warming, contrary to decreasing global blue carbon stocks elsewhere. For example, in warmer waters, mangroves and seagrasses are in decline and benthic organisms are close to their physiological limits, so a 1°C increase in water temperature could push them above
The Growing Potential of Antarctic Blue Carbon
Oceanography, 2023
The removal of carbon from the atmosphere for a long period (sequestration) is an increasingly pressing societal need in order to mitigate the negative effects of climate change. Investment and technology solutions are moving in the direction of industrial carbon capture and storage. To date, this technology is inefficient, expensive, and in some cases, not even net carbon zero. Optimistic estimates suggesting huge investment in infrastructure, which requires resources that include land and fresh water, will only marginally contribute toward the reductions in atmospheric CO2 required to minimize the impact of climate change over the next 50 years