The role of coastal ecosystems in climate change mitigation has inspired the concept of blue carbon markets, where projects restoring or conserving these ecosystems generate “credits” based on the tonnes of carbon captured and stored.
This paper provides a practical framework to guide governments in catalysing and scaling up public and private investment in blue carbon as part of their blue economy development. It does this by describing in detail a Blue Carbon Readiness Framework, a step-by-step, well-illustrated guide with simple checklists. Client countries can use the illustrations and checklists to determine their readiness to catalyse and scale up investment in blue carbon credit finance.
The report is intended for government services and for cross-sectoral attention within government structures. While its focus is on promoting blue carbon readiness and identifying pathways for action and funding from all sources, especially the private sector, it is not an investment guide for the private sector, or an assessment of the exact place blue carbon interventions hold within the field of private investment for nature.