Mitigating Climate Change through Restoration and Management of Coastal Wetlands and Near-shore Marine Ecosystems : Challenges and Opportunities

There is overwhelming consensus amongst
climate scientists that the Earth's warming in recent
decades has been caused primarily by human activities that
have increased the amount of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the
atmosphere. To mitigate the most serious impacts of climate
change a range of different strategies to lower carbon
dioxide (CO2) concentrations in the atmosphere are required.
Building on outcomes and recommendations from various
coastal carbon activities, this report explains the GHG
dynamics of coastal wetlands and marine ecosystems (chapter
two). The importance of coastal wetland and near-shore
marine ecosystem carbon pools for climate change mitigation
are described in chapter three, with a brief overview of the
status of these systems, including drivers of change and
implications of degradation of carbon pools, provided in
Chapter four. Chapter five gives an overview of policy
opportunities under ongoing United Nation Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations and
through revision of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) carbon accounting methodologies and eligible
mitigation activities for developing as well as developed
countries. The main recommendations for action are
summarized in chapter six.