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Integrating blue: How do we make nationally determined contributions work for both blue carbon and local coastal communities?

ABSTRACT: Blue Carbon Ecosystems (BCEs) help mitigate and adapt to climate change but their integration into policy, such as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), remains underdeveloped. Most BCE conservation requires community engagement, hence community-scale projects must be nested within the implementation of NDCs without compromising livelihoods or social justice. Thirty-three experts, drawn from academia, project development and policy, each developed ten key questions for consideration on how to achieve this. These questions were distilled into ten themes, ranked in order of importance, giving three broad categories of people, policy & finance, and science & technology. Critical considerations for success include the need for genuine participation by communities, inclusive project governance, integration of local work into national policies and practices, sustaining livelihoods and income (for example through the voluntary carbon market and/or national Payment for Ecosystem Services and other types of financial compensation schemes) and simplification of carbon accounting and verification methodologies to lower barriers to entry.

SUBMITTER: Dencer-Brown AM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9063623 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:BackgroundInstituted under the Paris Agreement, nationally determined contributions (NDCs) outline countries' plans for mitigating and adapting to climate change. They are the primary policy instrument for protecting people's health in the face of rising global temperatures. However, evidence on engagement with health in the NDCs is scarce. In this study, we aimed to examine how public health is incorporated in the NDCs, and how different patterns of engagement might be related to broader inequalities and tensions in global climate politics.MethodsWe analysed the NDCs in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change registry submitted by 185 countries. Using content analysis and natural language processing (NLP) methods, we developed measures of health engagement. Multivariate regression analyses examined whether country-level factors (eg, population size, gross domestic product [GDP], and climate-related exposures) were associated with greater health engagement. Using NLP methods, we compared health engagement with other climate-related challenges (ie, economy, energy, and agriculture) and examined broader differences in the keyword terms used in countries with high and low health engagement in their NDCs.FindingsCountries that did not mention health in their NDCs were clustered in high-income countries, whereas greater health engagement was concentrated in low-income and middle-income countries. Having a low GDP per capita and being a small island developing state were associated with higher levels of health engagement. In addition, higher levels of population exposure to temperature change and ambient air pollution were associated with more health coverage included in a country's NDC. Variation in health engagement was greater than for other climate-related issues and reflected wider differences in countries' approaches to the NDCs.InterpretationA focus on health in the NDCs follows broader patterns of global inequalities. Poorer and climate-vulnerable countries that contribute least to climate change are more likely to engage with health in their NDCs, while richer countries focus on non-health sectors in their NDCs, such as energy and the economy.FundingThis work was in part funded through an unrestricted grant from the Wellcome Trust and supported by The Economic and Social Research Council.

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Integrating blue: How do we make nationally determined contributions work for both blue carbon and local coastal communities?

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