National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Driving scientific consensus around ocean-based natural climate solutions

About the Talk As recently as 2011, "blue carbon" was assumed to refer almost exclusively to the carbon sequestered in vegetated coastal ecosystems, specifically "mangrove forests, seagrass beds, and salt marshes." A decade later, we now recognize that the ocean's vast size and biogeochemical complexity may support dozens of possible pathways to sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or avoid new emissions, ranging from interventions in coastal ecosystems to those involving fish and whales in the open ocean, and even farming of seaweeds. "Blue carbon" is now "simply" the term for carbon captured by the world's ocean and coastal ecosystems. With this increased recognition of the ocean's potential, buoyed by the urgency of the climate crisis and the launch of the U.N. Ocean Decade, we have witnessed an explosion of interest – verging at times on hype – in approaches that use coastal and open ocean ecosystems to store carbon. These approaches range from natural climate solutions, such preserving or restoring mangroves, salt marshes and the populations of large marine mammals or fishes, to unproven technological methods for ocean-based carbon dioxide reduction (CDR) such as ocean alkalinity enhancement and ocean iron fertilization. Growing interest in this wide spectrum of blue carbon pathways has catalyzed developments in remote sensing that give us a much better understanding of how much blue carbon is out there, and inspired the development of a growing number of standards for carbon offsets based upon these systems. But the same interest has revealed some very significant uncertainties and gaps in our knowledge, and called into question the ability of these various pathways serve as a source of high-quality carbon credits. In my presentation, I will introduce an ongoing EDF project in which we are seeking to build scientific consensus surrounding ocean-based natural climate solutions. With support from Bezos Earth Fund, we have convened more than 70 outside experts to characterize the scientific and market readiness, co-benefits and socioeconomic aspects of solutions in three focal areas: Pathways based on biogeochemical processes in the open ocean, the cultivation of macroalgae in offshore environments, and pathways involving traditional, coastal "blue carbon" ecosystems. I will present some preliminary findings from our work in the open ocean environment and preview our efforts – planned for this spring – for macroalgal aquaculture and traditional blue carbon systems.

About the Speaker Jamie Collins s is a Marine Biogeochemical Scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, where he translates the complex science surrounding ocean carbon and nutrient cycles to address critical questions in marine governance and climate change policy. He leverages a unique background as a scientist, environmental policy practitioner and leader in government and the U.S. military to identify actionable solutions for ocean health and climate. He is currently anchoring EDF&aspos;s scientific work on ocean-based natural climate solutions and ocean carbon dioxide reduction technologies more broadly. Prior to joining EDF as a Bezos Earth Fund Postdoctoral Fellow, Jamie served as an ocean data scientist at the University of Washington and a principal official in charge of emergency oil spill and hazardous materials cleanup for the state of Oregon. Jamie holds a master's degree in environmental science from the Yale School of the Environment and a Ph.D. in chemical oceanography from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program. He is an active-duty U.S. Coast Guard veteran and officer in the Coast Guard Reserve, having enforced fisheries and environmental laws on the high seas and responded to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and hurricanes Harvey and Katrina. His scientific work has taken him to Antarctica three times, and he has spent more than 600 total days at sea as a scientist and military officer. A member of the World Climate Research Programme's Working Group on anthropogenic perturbation of the global carbon cycle, Jamie maintains appointments as a Guest Investigator at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and adjunct professor at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.

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