Get ready to catch the ‘blue carbon’ wave by GRID-Arendal - GRID-Arendal News
Skip to content
Home
10%

Get ready to catch the ‘blue carbon’ wave

Dominic Ali

GRID-Arendal
By GRID-Arendal

You might not be familiar with the term ‘blue carbon’, but you soon will be if GRID-Arendal and its partners have their way. The Norwegian environmental nonprofit is spearheading innovative projects to combat climate change by protecting and conserving marine animals and coastal ecosystems.

The organization’s work was recently incorporated into a headline-grabbing report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) about the power of whales to fight climate change. It argued that protecting great whales might be even more effective than planting massive numbers of trees as a way to keep carbon out of the atmosphere.

The report explains that over the course of a great whale’s 60-plus-year lifespan, the creature absorbs an average 33 tons of carbon dioxide. This means a single whale can store the carbon equivalent of thousands of trees. When the whale dies and its carcass drops to the bottom of the sea, that stored carbon remains safely locked away in the ocean.

Whales also assist in the production of microscopic phytoplankton, which not only provide food for a range of sea creatures but also capture an estimated 40 percent of all CO2 produced on Earth.

Clearly, whales are not just photogenic megafauna.

A photo in this story

The IMF report estimates the value of the nature-based services provided by a single great whale at more than $2 million USD. This number includes whales’ economic contributions to sectors such as ecotourism as well as their carbon-sequestering power. Altogether, the research valued the Earth’s current stock of great whales at more than $1 trillion USD.

‘Whales and all marine life are our partners in the fight against global climate change’, says Steven Lutz, head of the blue carbon programme at GRID-Arendal. ‘And pricing whale carbon is just the beginning’. 

GRID’s blue carbon work focuses on two different areas. ‘Oceanic blue carbon’ refers to the countless large and small sea creatures that store carbon such as whales, turtles, and even tiny krill. There’s also ‘coastal blue carbon’, which refers to ecosystems such as salt marshes, sea grasses, and mangrove forests that store CO2 and provide services such as filtering pollution, supplying habitat to sea life, and protecting shorelines. The benefits of both types of blue carbon systems are only now starting to be understood, says Lutz. 

He explains that blue carbon projects could address challenges far beyond protecting species and storing CO2. Coastal blue carbon projects, for example, are already being used to help local communities generate much-needed income in sustainable ways. 

Lutz points to a project GRID-Arendal partners have undertaken in a rural community in Kenya to protect and restore mangrove forests. The carbon sequestered by community-based mangrove conservation efforts is certified by the Plan Vivo Foundation, and corresponding carbon credits are sold to buyers wanting to offset greenhouse gas emissions. The resulting revenue goes to the local communities, enabling them to transition away from activities that destroy mangroves.

‘Although these ecosystem-based projects are still relatively small, they hold an incredible amount of promise. If they could scale up, the results would be significant’, says Lutz.

One reason these types of projects have so much potential is that coastal ecosystems are remarkably efficient at CO2 sequestration. Although they only account for a small percentage of the Earth’s surface area, coastal ecosystems can be up to 10 times more effective at sequestering carbon dioxide on an annual per area basis than other ecosystems such as boreal, temperate, and tropical forests. Coastal carbon projects can also be implemented in many different regions of the globe, especially those with high levels of biodiversity. 

Blue carbon projects could enable countries—particularly developing nations—to undertake meaningful, nature-based actions under the Paris Agreement. Countries are currently in the process of submitting increasingly ambitious Paris pledges, and so far more than 30 countries have included blue carbon in their climate mitigation plans.

The concept of blue carbon is beginning to gain notice on the world stage. It got an unprecedented amount of attention at the UN Climate Change Conference in Madrid in December, and was discussed at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January. U.S. presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren embraced it in the oceans plan she unveiled late last year. And a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the U.S. House recently introduced a blue carbon bill that would protect and restore coastal ecosystems. 

Also, in 2019, the United Arab Emirates, with help from GRID-Arendal, completed the world’s first national assessment of policy options for promoting CO2 storage by marine vertebrates. This assessment demonstrated the potential for new blue-carbon regulations to help conserve the world’s marine environment and address climate change.

The benefits of blue carbon projects could get even larger depending on the price put on carbon. The IMF recently called for a global carbon tax of $75 USD per ton by 2030. With a carbon price that high, a single great whale could be valued up to $6 million USD, and CO2-sequestering coastal community projects could generate millions of dollars. 

‘If this happened’, says Lutz with a smile, ‘marine conservation could become a huge for-profit business!’

-----

Dominic Ali is a writer in Canada. He can be reached on Twitter at @domali3.


© 2025 GRID-Arendal

GRID-Arendal is a non-profit environmental communications centre. We transform environmental data into innovative, science-based information products with the aim of motivating decision makers to effect positive change.
Subscribe to get an email notification when we publish new stories.
Join 543 others
When you subscribe to the email list of GRID-Arendal, your email address is stored securely. We will only email you when a new story is published. You may unsubscribe at any time. We respect your privacy and your inbox.
Loading, please hold on.