6 October 2009: The UN Environment Programme (UNEP), in collaboration with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), has compiled a report that illustrates how the ocean’s carbon capture and storage systems (CCS) are being undermined by human activity, thereby harming their ability to “sequester” greenhouse gas emissions.

The Blue Carbon Report will be launched in Cape Town, South Africa, on 14 October 2009.
The report also outlines the way markets might begin paying developing countries for conserving and enhancing the marine environment’s CCS and the links between healthy oceans and adaptation to climate change. According to the report, the world’s oceans, seas and marine ecosystems, such as seagrass, salt marshes and coastal wetlands, are daily absorbing and removing large quantities of carbon from the atmosphere, while several developed countries are considering spending billions of dollars on CCS at power stations. The report argues that the CCS services of natural systems, such as the seas and oceans, are tested and likely to be more cost effective
[UNEP Press release]