Ocean Climate Solutions: Blue carbon Now Incorporated in the Updated Kenya’s Nationally Determined Contributions to Paris Agreement

Abstract

Climate debate has seen enhanced interests in ocean-based climate solutions, with a lot of focus being laid on blue carbon ecosystems. Blue carbon (BC) describes the carbon storage potential of vegetated coastal ecosystems, including tidal marshes, mangrove forests, and seagrass meadows(Donato, et al., 2011, ) Although they occupy less than 0.05% of the sea bed, BC account for 50-71% of the entire C stored in the ocean sediments and are ranked as the most intense C sink on earth (Nelleman & Corcoran 2009; Donato et al., 2011). Unfortunately, BC are being degraded globally at an alarming rate of 1-7% per year, which is significantly higher than the global loss of tropical forests, estimated at 0.5% per year (ref.). When these BC are degraded, they not only halt to take up more carbon, but most important they release the already stored carbon back to the atmosphere leading to global warming (Pendleton et al., 2012).