This week, Elizabeth Warren, senator from Massachusetts and a candidate for US president, issued a Blue New Deal for Our Oceans that strongly features ‘blue carbon’. Through initiatives such as the UN Environment Blue Forests Project, GRID-Arendal has long worked on blue carbon , a strategic approach to protecting ocean ecosystems as a way of fighting climate change, but it has not gotten a lot of high-profile attention – until now, at this week’s international climate change discussions and, through Senator Warren, in US polices. Warren’s proposal is the first of its kind in the 2020 US presidential race.Her oceans plan focusses on a variety of coastal and marine issues, including sustainable ocean-based jobs (the ‘blue economy’), renewable energy, maritime food security, marine protected areas, and, notably, how the US government can play a role in both climate change adaptation and mitigation through ocean conservation and regeneration.Warren specifically calls for establishing a national blue carbon programme and ensuring funding for blue carbon research. From her plan:
Blue Carbon Enters US Presidential Race
