Three quarters of the UK is in the sea. Among the diversity of marine wildlife found within UK seas lies a reservoir of carbon stored in natural habitats like sand, mud, saltmarsh and seagrass. Unlike land-based sources of carbon such as forests and peatlands, marine carbon stores are less well understood. This report begins to fill in the gaps in our knowledge of where carbon can be found within the English North Sea, how much carbon is being stored and the capacity to lock carbon away in the future. This research paves the way for better understanding and protection of marine carbon and in doing so tackling the dual climate and biodiversity crises.
Read the report in full here.
The world is facing a combined climate and biodiversity emergency, the result of the ongoing destruction of the environment, including natural carbon stores. Years of exploitation and over-consumption of natural resources coupled with undervaluing the roles and contributions of marine ecosystems has left our seas degraded. Specifically, when we damage or degrade carbon stores we impair their ability to absorb carbon and we release locked-away carbon back into the sea and atmosphere. These same actions are also damaging and destroying the very biodiversity that enables carbon to be locked away in natural systems in the first place, thus further compromising effective capture and storage in the future.
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Posted On: 09/11/2021