Linking ocean and climate change governance

Abstract

Increasing links are being made between ocean sustainability and climate change, as illustrated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change special report on the ocean and cryosphere, and the billing of the 2019 UN climate change conference as the “Blue COP.” This review of these linkages is framed by the “bandwagoning” literature in global environmental politics to examine how ocean action has been constructed as being relevant for both climate mitigation and adaptation. This includes growing interest in “blue carbon” and the emerging narrative of the ocean as a “solution” to climate change, and drawing attention to climate impacts on ocean ecosystems and marine biodiversity. It highlights the roles played in constructing this link by entrepreneurial states and the NGO community in building an ocean‐climate bandwagon with the existing processes of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. As broader political attention is paid to ocean health, this review also highlights how these climate bandwagoning efforts overlap or clash with other ocean‐related international environmental processes. This article is categorized under: Policy and Governance > Multilevel and Transnational Climate Change Governance

The Role of Blue Carbon in Climate Change Mitigation and Carbon Stock Conservation

“…Financing from stakeholders, who would benefit from ecosystem services as well as from carbon credits, requires a transparent and credible system for managing such a market. Although "climate bandwagoning" (Chan, 2021) commonly justifies political and economic action under a cover of climate mitigation, it now needs to translate into applicable and fast-paced governance practices and policies, starting with partnerships with the private sector as well as the expansion of the tax base. These conservation efforts can only succeed if local communities are part of the decision-making process, where they stand to directly benefit from the meaningful employment and steady income that would help ensure ownership of these efforts.…”

“…This question calls for international innovative coordination and joint strategies, in order to avoid habitat degradation that releases carbon and ensure the integrity of carbon cycling and sequestration. The potential international support granted to Blue Carbon rich countries is one of many incentives arising with cross-sectorial carbon management (Chan, 2021). Other initiatives include the UNEP Regional Seas Program which proposes a shared areas approach based on tackling "ocean grabbing, " an issue of powerful stakeholders attempting to secure other resources from the ocean along with carbon rights (Barbesgaard, 2018).…”

A Systematic Review and Global Trends on Blue Carbon and Sustainable Development: A Bibliometric Study from 2012 to 2023

“…Topic I: Blue carbon plays a prominent role in ocean and climate change issues Inextricably linked to climate, the oceans play a key role in climate change mitigation and adaptation [135][136][137][138][139][140], and blue carbon plays a potential contributing or even the predominant role [11,55,[140][141][142][143][144][145][146][147][148][149][150][151]. As part of the ongoing discussions regarding the oceanclimate nexus and blue carbon, more attention is being paid to carbon cycling and storage processes in the open ocean as a potential solution to climate change [107].…”

“…In order to protect the blue carbon pool and formulate a sustainable management plan, incorporating REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Plus) will play an important role and is the ultimate objective of developing blue carbon policies [71,140,248]. The ability to quantify carbon accumulation in sediments is a useful tool for estimating the amount of carbon stored in mangrove ecosystems, which is a precondition for the implementation of REDD+ programs [117,164,228].…”

Blue carbon governance for carbon neutrality in China: Policy evaluation and perspectives

“…Traditionally, terrestrial (“green”) carbon sinks have received much of the attention [ 6 ], but as our scientific understanding advances, the significance of marine (“blue”) carbon sinks is gradually coming to the forefront [ 7 ]. Recognizing the growing connection between ocean sustainability and climate change [ 8 ], many countries are now emphasizing the development of blue carbon sinks as integral contributors to emissions reduction.…”