The Sea Grant Niche for Coastal Blue Carbon

Catherine JanasiePulaski

Sea Grant programs, collaborations, and outreach efforts have recently included opportunities to enhance carbon storage and/or reduce emissions. For example, coastal blue carbon ecosystems (BCEs) are tidally-connected habitats that sequester carbon over time. BCEs are recognized in the U.S. Ocean Climate Action Plan and several state GHG inventories. Additionally, a white paper on BCE opportunities and challenges was developed for NOAA (Brodeur et al. 2022); the 2023 Blue Carbon Law Symposium co-hosted by Georgia and South Carolina Sea Grants; and a 2023 EPA report (The Blue Carbon Reservoirs from Maine to Long Island, NY) was co-authored by MIT Sea Grant. Sea Grant has an opportunity to build local to national leadership on carbon through education, inter-disciplinary research, and implementation strategies. This session will provide the opportunity for Sea Grant programs to (i) share recent or upcoming efforts in BCE and carbon reduction practices, (ii) identify partnership opportunities and information gaps that Sea Grant programs can address, (iii) build a new network of carbon practitioners across Sea Grant. This session is open to focus areas such as decarbonization of maritime fleets; reduction of the aquaculture carbon footprint, and other activities. Key outputs will include a set of recommendations to revise the National Sea Grant’s Blue Carbon website, and outline of the current carbon storage or reduction focus areas among Sea Grant programs. 

Thu 10:00 am - 11:30 am