Menu
Released the first week of every new quarter, the BCCC Quarterly is a magazine-style newsletter that records the most important trends and developments regarding blue carbon and climate change policies and regulations in China, the U.S., and other regions, as well as international regimes such as the United Nations. It also includes two special sections — the ‘Theme of the Quarter’ and the ‘Blue Carbon Country Profile’ — that aim to bring a fresh element to each issue.
Despite how slowly the climate change and blue carbon field evolves, both in the private and public sectors, there will inevitably be an identifiable trend of interest across a three month period. Thus, every quarter the ICAS Team will identify and summarize a major trend or long-term topic of interest relevant to the most recent quarter.
In addition to collections of relevant news summaries, government actions and statements, and scientific research activities, the theme includes an analytical commentary from our researchers on how this theme relates to other present-day developments, policy interests, climate change and environment concerns, and implications for the blue carbon field.
Human activity-induced climate change has been proven to be an immediate contributor to the uptick in global extreme weather events witnessed over the last few decades. These various natural disasters and their associated damages, happening across the world from Chile to Japan, have claimed many lives and brought unquantifiable economic losses.
In the Summer of 2022, “record-breaking” extreme weather events swept the globe, bringing suffering to countless people and catching the continued attention of the world. This BCCC Quarterly’s Theme of the Quarter, Global Extreme Weather, aims to use these living examples to warn people that climate change has become a more and more looming threat to humanity. It also discusses both the direct and indirect efforts by governments and private corporations to fight extreme weather and concludes with a commentary on extreme weather’s implication for blue carbon environments and how those environments might, in turn, help reduce these catastrophic cases of extreme weather.
Given how ‘blue carbon’ is a relatively new subject to both scientists and policymakers, the ICAS Team wants to provide a collective view on how individual nations are recognizing, analyzing, and applying blue carbon at all levels of the government, through cross-border and international engagements, and in private sector and non-profit activities.
This profile is also intended to identify places that are in need of particular attention. It will conclude with issues that interested parties should pay attention to in the coming months and years, including areas that need improvement, potentials worth exploring as well as possibilities of bilateral and multilateral cooperation in both policymaking and scientific exploration.
As one of the first countries to recognize the important roles that coastal ecosystems play in carbon sequestration, storage and the mitigation of climate change effects, the United States has gathered notable experience in not only the measurement and tracking of blue carbon benefits and products but also the conservation and restoration of coastal blue carbon ecosystems.
As such, this BCCC Quarterly’s Blue Carbon Country Profile on the United States delves into the blue carbon landscape in the U.S. with the aim to provide a comprehensive review of known, relevant works at all levels and across all sectors. In addition to collecting and documenting the publicly-known efforts and progress in the U.S. on blue carbon, this country profile also identifies the potential gaps in today’s policymaking and strategic planning on blue carbon issues; especially on the federal level.
The Institute for China-America Studies is an independent nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization dedicated to strengthening the understanding of U.S.-China relations through expert analysis and practical policy solutions.
1919 M St. NW Suite 310,
Washington, DC 20036
icas@chinaus-icas.org
(202) 968-0595
© 2024 INSTITUTE FOR CHINA-AMERICA STUDIES. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.