Mat Vanderklift1, Rita Franco-Santos1, Karen Filbee-Dexter2, Thomas Wernberg2
1CSIRO Oceans & Atmosphere, Crawley, Australia, 2UWA Oceans Institute and School of Biological Sciences, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia
International climate policy frameworks are a major influence on which climate mitigation activities are widely adopted. These frameworks currently incorporate coastal ‘blue’ carbon, in a way that is based on adaptations of methods originally developed for land use change and forestry. The methods are based on storage and sequestration of organic carbon in soils where activities occur, and so are not well suited to kelp carbon, for which most sequestration happens in areas distant from kelp forests. Development of blue carbon markets has also largely been based on adaptations of mechanisms developed for land use change and forestry, and so are similarly ill-equipped to incorporate carbon from kelp forests. Voluntary carbon market methods can be early adopters of new approaches, and do not necessarily need to be constrained by international climate policy frameworks. However, carbon units traded in high integrity markets do require adherence to stringent requirements regarding permanence and additionality. These in turn require a sound understanding of the fate of organic carbon. These processes have not yet been well resolved for kelp-derived carbon. We discuss the information requirements associated with international climate frameworks and carbon markets, highlight some of the key similarities and differences between kelp forests and other vegetated ecosystems, and explore the key knowledge gaps that need to be resolved to incorporate kelp blue carbon in policy and finance frameworks.