By Riya Lalchandani

Abstract

Blue carbon credits are a type of carbon offset focused on preserving and restoring coastal ecosystems such as mangrove forests, seagrass meadows and tidal flats. As a result, blue carbon credits have become a popular tool for offsetting carbon emissions, especially in the shipping and aviation industries, which have a large impact on coastal ecosystems. 

Due to their unique depositional conditions and location along the land-sea interface, blue carbon ecosystems accumulate organic carbon exponentially more efficiently as compared to terrestrial ecosystems. Each ecosystem exhibits great variability due to the impact of multiple factors on primary productivity and carbon sequestration, including plant types and densities, topography, hydrology, and climate.  This research article provides an overview of India’s blue carbon credit scheme its limitations, opportunities, possible solutions and growth strategies along with a road map for the future of sustainable development goals.

Overview 

Sustainable development has become a crucial aspect of economic growth and human well-being in today’s world. With the looming threat of climate change and global warming, it has become increasingly essential to find ways to mitigate the effects of human activity on the environment. One promising approach to achieving this goal is through the use of blue carbon credits. These credits are designed to incentivize the conservation and restoration of coastal ecosystems, which are some of the most efficient natural carbon sinks on the planet.

What are Blue Carbon Credits? Blue carbon credits are a form of carbon offset that focuses on the conservation and restoration of coastal ecosystems, such as mangrove forests, seagrass beds, and tidal marshes. These ecosystems are incredibly effective at sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, with some studies suggesting that they can store up to ten times more carbon per hectare than terrestrial forests. As a result, blue carbon credits have become a popular tool for offsetting carbon emissions, particularly in the shipping and aviation industries, which have a significant impact on coastal ecosystems.

The basic principle behind blue carbon credits is that organizations can purchase credits that represent a certain amount of carbon sequestered by a specific coastal ecosystem. These credits can then be used to offset the organization’s own carbon emissions, effectively neutralizing their carbon footprint. The credits can also be traded on carbon markets, allowing organizations to buy and sell them to meet their offsetting obligations.

Southeast Asia is home to some of the world’s most significant coastal ecosystems, including extensive Sundarbans mangrove forests, seagrass meadows, and coral reefs. These ecosystems play a crucial role in the region’s economy, providing a range of ecosystem services, including fisheries, coastal protection, and tourism. However, they are also under threat from a range of human activities, including deforestation, coastal development, and overfishing.

Blue carbon credits offer an opportunity to incentivize the conservation and restoration of these ecosystems while also providing economic benefits to local communities. 

Because of their unique sediment conditions and location along the land-ocean interface, blue carbon ecosystems disproportionally accumulate OC in comparison to terrestrial ecosystems. Blue carbon is primarily deposited in wet sediment as opposed to biomass, reducing the risk of abrupt carbon loss, especially after fire. Additionally, this permits a continual build-up of carbon even after the ecosystem reaches its mature state. With a global coverage of less than 0.4% of the land, blue carbon comprises roughly 1.3% (38.5 19 TgC yr1) of land sequestration. Blue carbon habitats are hence disproportionately effective carbon sinks. 

However, these ecosystems release the carbon they have been storing for ages into the atmosphere and oceans when they are damaged or killed, which makes them producers of greenhouse gases. According to experts, 1.02 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide are emitted by degraded coastal habitats every year, which is equal to 19% of tropical deforestation’s global emissions.

Limitations

Data Limitations

Due to the numerous scales and measures  that are employed in any research, data limitations are unavoidable. These restrictions emphasise the necessity of exercising principles of conservatism while calculating carbon sequestration. It is difficult to give a representative average carbon sequestration rate at the plot scale. Each ecosystem exhibits high variability due to the influence of several factors on primary productivity and carbon sequestration, including plant type or density, geomorphology, hydrology, and climate. Similar to this, studies on sediment carbon burial are frequently dependent on site-specific evaluations, which might not be entirely representative of the ecosystem being examined. Poor estimates of ecosystem extent impede calculations of national and global carbon sequestration. Because of technological limitations and geographical ambiguity, estimating ecosystem area is still difficult, especially for saltmarshes and seagrasses.

Overstatement of Carbon Sequestration

Although certain previously unrecognised processes suggest carbon losses, carbon sequestration can be overstated. For instance, the usual estimation of blue carbon sequestration is based on sediment build-up and OC (organic carbon) concentration, which assumes that these two quantities are constant over time. However, OC supplies are continuously degraded by porewater outflow, OC remineralization, and sediment mixing via bioturbation. Due to some trapped allochthonous OC being refractory and resistant to remineralization, which does not represent additional burial, blue carbon may potentially be overstated in some cases. Last but not least, while blue carbon frequently places an emphasis on OC sequestration, dissolved inorganic carbon is also significant because it can be directly re-emitted to the atmosphere as CO2 and affect calcium carbonate cycling, which in turn can steer the coastal carbon budget in an ambiguous direction.

Ensuring accurate carbon accounting methodologies and equitable distribution of benefits to the grassroot community level are some of the other challenges that need to be addressed in order to create the blue carbon credit revolution.

Opportunities and Solutions 

Initiatives like Orca Blue Biochar [OBB] establishes a new value chain in the emerging ocean economy by directing private investment and returns into long-term economic solutions for people and the earth. It invests in the manufacture of biochar in coastal regions to generate income for the local economy and reduce atmospheric CO2. Pyrolysis, a thermochemical conversion procedure is used to create the carbon-rich substance known as biochar from biomass. Using the ability of a cheap natural resource (beach-cast seaweed) to sequester carbon, OBB would be able to generate revenue through the production and sale of seaweed biochar and high-quality blue carbon credits. The goal of OBB is to use accessible and underutilised ocean resources to sequester carbon at scale, creating new economic opportunities that will benefit both the earth and humans.

Blue Carbon Initiative: The Blue Carbon Project seeks to protect and restore mangroves tidal marshes and seagrasses in order to minimise the effects of climate change on coastal ecosystems. The International Blue Carbon Scientific Working Group and International Blue Carbon Policy Working Group, which offer direction for necessary research, project implementation, and policy priorities, are being coordinated by the Initiative to assist this work. Their work includes restoration of mangroves, tidal marshes, and seagrasses to conserve their blue carbon value.

An economic model presented by Murray et al. enables an approximation of the valuation of Blue Carbon in a fictitious carbon market that considers marine habitats. They discover through case studies that, for mangroves in Asia’s tropical regions, the market value of carbon that is not released into the atmosphere might range from US$5,000 to US$37,000 per hectare in situations where the price of carbon is between US$5.00 to US$30.00/tCO2e. Economic expenses of USD$6-42 billion per year might result from the loss of marshes, mangroves, and seagrasses.

Carbon prices should reflect the marginal cost of emitting an additional unit of greenhouse gases. This is because an organization or country wishing to reduce emissions can only reach the point where the marginal cost of decreasing additional units is greater than the price paid. However, the problem in determining this rate is its application, as climate variables and impacts are difficult to factor into the estimates accurately, and there are many ways to reduce these emissions. In theory, it corresponds to the present value of the economic damage caused by an additional unit/ marginal unit of greenhouse gas emissions to reflect what society is willing to pay today to avoid future damage from greenhouse gas emissions. This is commonly called social carbon cost (SCC).

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change studied the benefits of greenhouse gas mitigation and, using an “Integrated Assessment Model”, found that the social cost of carbon emissions in 2008 ranged from $12.00 to $17.00/MgCO2e. 

Indian Perspective

India is fortunate to have a 7,500+ km long coastline. India currently has salt marshes that range in size from 300 to 1400 square kilometres, 500 square kilometres of seagrass, and around 5,000 square kilometres of mangroves, which together make up about 0.5 percent of the country’s total land area. These coastal systems can trap carbon much more quickly and for millions of years despite their modest size. According to an article published by Labanya Prakash Jena a regional climate finance adviser of the Indo-Pacific region at the Commonwealth Secretariat and Prasad Ashok Thakur, a CIMO scholar these coastal systems can absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) up to 20 times more than any other terrestrial ecosystem, including boreal and tropical forests. Their entire ability to sequester carbon has been calculated to be 702.42 million tonnes of CO2e, or nearly 22% of India’s yearly carbon emissions. Moreover, rehabilitating coastal areas provides other environmental services, including biodiversity, small-scale fishing, and food security.

The Indian government should be aware that it has only ever relied on homogeneous material on blue carbon R&D, typically written by a small group of specialized researchers. In order to institutionalise this workstream, it should now commence building, compiling, and formalising these databases in order to get policy decisions underway.

The following are some potential fixes India could pursue:

• Coordinate the blue-carbon industry’s financial and policy actions with technology advancements.
• Establish national goals for key industries that advance the creation of an ecosystem for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, and then specify phase-by-phase value-chain development strategies for acquiring the information, resources, and labour that will catalyse national efforts.
• Establishing a strong, liquid, and dynamic carbon market is integral to its blue credit revolution scheme.
• It must also empirically validate the planned missions through pilot studies and subsequently determine budgetary outlays for the short- to medium-term to perform better than market expectations.

Transnational Collaborations

By virtue of its geostrategic location India may be able to serve as a leading beacon for coordinating cross-functional and cross-continental initiatives in the blue carbon space. It can forge impactful agreements in both bilateral and multinational venues. India can mobilise its resources to exercise its leadership talents in the international environmental forums now that it has taken over the presidency of the G20. Additionally, keeping its own interests in mind, it must take an active role in programmes like the Blue Carbon Project.

Both India’s participation in the “One Ocean Summit” and its recent support of the French-led “High Ambition Coalition on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction’ ” are positive incipient steps in the right direction. Furthermore, India has a wealth of blue carbon resources that it can use to assist Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

About the author:

Riya Lalchandani is a 2nd-year BBA LLB student at JGLS with a keen interest in environmental law and conservation. She is a columnist at the Centre for New Economics Studies and writes research articles aimed at raising awareness about pressing environmental and social issues for their blog Nickled and Dimed. She is also a medical and nutritional facilitator at People for Animal Welfare (PAW) JGU. Her hobbies include volunteer work and reading. 

Image Source: https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/publication/avoiding-leakage-from-nature-based-offsets-by-design/