New S’pore-led initiative to boost protection, restoration of marine habitats for carbon credits
(Photo credit: ST Photo/Shintaro Tay)
Source: The Straits Times
A Singapore-led initiative that aims to boost the protection and restoration of marine and coastal habitats in South-east Asia to generate carbon credits was launched in New York on Sept 24.
Blue Catalyst aims to help early-stage companies with technological solutions that can, among other things, accurately map out blue carbon habitats, monitor biodiversity or improve sapling mortality, and scale up their business models. The initiative is backed by the Economic Development Board (EDB).
Such solutions are geared towards tackling technical and operational barriers so more of such marine ecosystems can be conserved as carbon projects.
Under the 12-month programme, companies will be able to test their technology in actual conservation sites in South-east Asia managed by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), one of the world’s largest conservation organisations. WWF will also contribute its expertise on blue carbon science and carbon markets via its global network of specialists.
Hatch Blue, a global investment and innovation company that advances ventures supporting ocean health, will prepare the start-ups to attract investments and provide mentorship to help them scale up their businesses.
The agreement to collaborate on Blue Catalyst was signed by WWF-Singapore, Hatch Blue and the EDB on Sept 24 at the North America Climate Summit organised by the International Emissions Trading Association on the sidelines of New York Climate Week. The open call for applications, along with further details of the programme, will be announced by WWF and Hatch Blue in December.
WWF-Singapore chief executive Vivek Kumar said that blue carbon projects hold immense promise for the region, but implementing them and measuring their outcomes are beset with challenges.
Blue carbon refers to carbon stored in marine and coastal ecosystems such as mangroves, seagrasses and coastal wetlands.
More than 30 per cent of the world’s mangroves and seagrass are located in South-east Asia. These ecosystems can also store more carbon per hectare than tropical forests, support a variety of wildlife and protect coastal communities from storms.
One carbon credit represents one tonne of planet-warming carbon dioxide that such habitats remove or prevent from being released into the atmosphere.
The credits can be sold to companies all over the world, which buy them to offset their own carbon emissions to meet their environmental objectives. Examples of blue carbon projects currently in operation include mangrove restoration project Delta Blue Carbon in Pakistan, and mangrove and restoration projects managed by BlueMX in Mexico.
The ability of these ecosystems to generate revenue through the sale of carbon credits provides developers with the financial incentive to keep them standing, instead of cutting them down for other purposes, such as aquaculture.
But only about 0.2 per cent of credits available on the voluntary carbon market comes from blue carbon habitats, said Hatch Blue co-founder and partner Wayne Murphy. A key reason for this is the many uncertainties involved in determining the commercial viability of a blue carbon project.
For example, estimating the amount of carbon locked away in partially submerged or submerged ecosystems is less clear-cut than determining the same for forests.
On land, carbon is mainly stored in tree roots, trunks and branches. Equations have been developed to help scientists estimate the amount of carbon in a tropical forest plot after the trees in an area are mapped out using laser or satellite scanning technology.
But in marine habitats, more carbon is locked away in the sediment on the seabed, which is less easy to estimate.
And depending on location, one seagrass meadow may store a different amount of carbon compared with a plot of an equivalent size somewhere else. This is because the amount of carbon stored in a meadow depends on the seagrass species composition, as well as the different environmental conditions surrounding various seagrass sites.
For investors, the lack of clarity on how much carbon a blue carbon plot stores, or how this changes over time, makes determining their return on investment unclear.
On restoration projects, one 2023 scientific paper estimated that almost 50 per cent of mangrove restoration projects in the past 40 years failed.
The technological innovations supported under the new initiative could help overcome these uncertainties when they are scaled up.
Geospatial mapping tools, for instance, could enable a developer to better track ecosystem changes, while modelling software could improve the understanding of how the carbon stock in an ecosystem varies over time.
Solutions that are tailored to restoration, such as through the development of nurseries, could potentially improve the success rate of mangrove restoration projects.
This could eventually give investors greater confidence to develop more blue carbon projects – benefiting the climate, wildlife and the people living around them.
Mr Murphy said blue carbon innovators participating in the programme will stand to benefit from WWF’s scientific and technical expertise, EDB’s strategic and industry support, and Hatch Blue’s commercial, investment and start-up know-how.
“This partnership will pave the way for viable solutions being implemented at scale and raise the quantity of high-quality blue carbon credits,” he added.
Mr Lim Wey-Len, EDB’s executive vice-president who oversees the board’s strategy for the green economy, said the Blue Catalyst initiative will help address gaps in blue carbon project development observed in the market.
EDB will refer innovative companies, or those that are looking to provide solutions for blue carbon development, to this programme, he said, adding that Hatch Blue’s and WWF’s networks will further help to scale the reach of this effort. Speaking to the media after the signing event, Mr Lim said Singapore has identified carbon markets as a pathway for it to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
Other than the voluntary carbon market from which companies buy credits to achieve their own climate goals, countries can also establish agreements with one another to trade carbon credits to meet their national targets under the Paris Agreement.
Singapore had earlier estimated that it would use high-quality carbon credits to offset about 2.51 million tonnes of emissions a year over this decade. For example, in 2030, the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions are expected to be 62.51 million tonnes and will be brought down to 60 million tonnes with the use of carbon credits.
The carbon markets also provide a good economic opportunity, Mr Lim added. “It will create good jobs for locals and Singaporeans, especially in the field of sustainability reporting, carbon markets verification and so on,” he said. “We see the carbon market as an area of opportunity for Singapore to tap, leveraging our existing strengths in professional services, finance, to build Singapore up as a hub for carbon services in the Asia-Pacific.”
Speaking at a separate event at the summit, Singapore’s director-general for climate change, Mr Benedict Chia, said that the Republic was looking at two categories of projects as sources of carbon credits – energy and nature.
On energy, he pointed to a new class of carbon credits called transition credits, which arise from phasing out coal plants early. The emissions prevented from being released due to the early closure of the plants are sold as credits.
“The other piece we are working on is nature,” said Mr Chia, who is from Singapore’s National Climate Change Secretariat, pointing to a Sept 16 announcement by the Singapore Government that it had established contracts for carbon credits generated from nature restoration and protection projects in Ghana, Paraguay and Peru.
He said Singapore is hoping to do more, and that it will issue another request for proposals for carbon credits in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Mr Chia added that the carbon markets offer a platform for countries to cooperate with one another to achieve their climate goals.
Buyer countries can purchase credits to offset their emissions, while countries hosting the climate projects benefit from the carbon revenue that would not have flowed in without the carbon market.
“Cooperation is becoming even more important, given the headwinds we are facing in terms of economics, geopolitics and the global environment,” he added.