Accounting for China's Blue Economy and Coastal Blue Carbon

Abstract

The blue economy is committed to the sustainable development of the ocean economy and is an important part of the realisation of Sustainable Development Goal 14. The theory and practice of China's blue economy differs from that of other countries. Although China's blue economy is committed to developing a sustainable ocean economy, the accounting dimensions need to be more comprehensive, especially the blue carbon component, which represents the environmental dimension of the blue economy. Accounting for this dimension still needs to be systematic, and the methodology is still being explored. In addition, countries worldwide focus on carbon dioxide emission reduction and neutralisation in the global context of emission reduction, and blue carbon, like green carbon, has the function of carbon sequestration, which is an important part of carbon neutralisation. Besides, carbon burial rates per unit area of mangrove forests, salt marshes and seagrass beds are much higher than those of land forests, and the carbon sequestration periods are also longer than those of green carbon. Therefore, the Blue Carbon Accounting System developed in this research has a crucial contribution. It provides a systematic long-term monitoring of blue carbon and a data basis for developing carbon neutrality policies in China. Furthermore, the blue economy accounting, which includes the blue carbon sequestration sector, can also predict the impacts of carbon price changes on the relevant industries while regularly monitoring China's blue economy activities to promote the protection and restoration of blue carbon ecosystems while taking into account the development of the blue economy, which is of great significance for the development of carbon neutrality policies and achieving the goal of sustainable development of the ocean economy.

Date of Award	30 Sept 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Portsmouth
Supervisor	Pierre Failler (Supervisor) & Ben Drakeford (Supervisor)