In a recently published article, ‘Incorporating Blue Carbon into Climate Change Mitigation Policies: Multi-Level Governance Challenges for Carbon Credits and NDCs’, Megha K. Purushotham and Benjamin S. Thompson have illustrated the manner in which and the reasons why the incorporation of blue carbon into nationally determined contributions (‘NDCs’) and its trade take place infrequently at the national and local levels using the multi-level governance approach coupled with empirical results from Fiji.
Key takeaways:
- Blue carbon is the carbon captured and maintained by blue carbon ecosystems (BCEs) such as mangrove forests and seagrass meadows. The number of blue carbon activities generating credits that have been identified until 2023 has reached 70. That said, only 15 of such activities have been registered and only 11 of them involve credit trade. Importantly, the two activities taking place in small island developing states (‘SIDS’) are in the preparation phase. Even though data has been gathered at the global level in relation to states’ integration of blue carbon into their NDCs, most of such measures pertain to the conservation or restoration of BCEs without concretely specifying the amount of carbon effectively removed and emission reduction goals. Indeed, as of 2023, only 7 SIDS have set quantitative goals and 5 of them have incorporated blue carbon into their NDCs. This paucity stems from the difficulties countries encounter when carrying out activities related to BCEs.
- Multi-level governance (‘MLG’) theory examines the degree to which various governance processes are adequately integrated between and within levels. Vertical integration demonstrates the application status of the rules adopted at the international level (i.e. international NGOs and supranational organizations) at the lower levels (i.e. national, regional and local). Accordingly, robust vertical integration renders environmental governance influential. Horizontal governance pertains to the exchanges between stakeholders operating at the same level and interactive relations between such actors positively affects environmental governance.
- MLG offers an adequate conceptual framework for assessing blue carbon governance. BCEs involve actors operating at multiple governance levels and sectors that may have overlapping duties and ambiguous property rights.
- National-subnational as well as national-international interactions pertaining to blue carbon are currently inadequate. In Fiji, the national government does not support the local actors with the management of BCEs and disregards their concerns. On the contrary, the international actors are strongly incentivized to facilitate the operation of BCE activities due to the policy frameworks shaping their activities, funding choices, technocratic methodologies and efforts to maintain flow of funding.
- In Fiji, activities promoting blue carbon have not taken place in over a decade due to tenure-related problems, lack of benefit sharing with and inclusion of local communities and absence of diverse income sources originating from BCE-related activities. International donors supporting blue carbon activities in Fiji cannot cooperate adequately. Moreover, governmental officials in Fiji do not possess sufficient human resources, technical know-how and monitoring competences for adequately managing BCE. That said, overspending for engaging with foreign BCE experts has been criticized owing to the perceived presence of capable national experts. Another aspect hindering BCE implementation in Fiji relates to the cumbersome administrative processes involving multiple ministries.
- There are avenues for financing BCE activities apart from credit trading such as results-based payments entailing the provision of finance once the predetermined outcomes are achieved and blue bonds foreseeing the receipt of investments for BCE projects and repayment of debt to investors with interest after a certain date.
Read the full paper here: Incorporating blue carbon into climate change mitigation policies: Multi-level governance challenges for carbon credits and NDCs - ScienceDirect