The Interdisciplinary Observatory on Climate Change has published the first 2024 edition of our series Cadernos do OIMC: Créditos de carbono azul: muitas promessas mas ainda mais incertezas para o Sul Global. Signed by Prof. Mário Soares, a researcher on the OIMC Strategic Committee and coordinator of the Mangrove Studies Centre (NEMA-UERJ), co-authored with researchers from the Research Institute for Development (IRD – France), the Amadou Mahtar MBOW University (UAM – Senegal) and the Autonomous University of Campeche (Uacam – Mexico), this volume adapts the Policy Brief Blue carbon credits: a lot of promises but even more uncertainties for the Global South, presented in December 2023 at COP 28 in Dubai, in a translation by our collaborator Carolina de Figueiredo Garrido.

Read the article’s summary below:

Sustainable science, socio-environmental justice and equity will determine the necessary co-benefits for the credibility, acceptability and effectiveness of blue carbon credits. The blue carbon market must not distract policy-makers from the goal of urgent and massive emission reductions in the Global North. It must be demonstrated that it effectively sequesters and stores carbon everywhere, but also that it is equitable and inclusive in and with the Global South. For this to happen, blue carbon finance strategies must be co-designed with all stakeholders, with a particular attention to the most vulnerable people in the Global South. More globally, an integrated approach addressing carbon storage but also adaptation capacities, biodiversity conservation and benefits for the communities is to be preferred.