This week, Elizabeth Warren, senator from Massachusetts and a candidate for US president, issued a Blue New Deal for Our Oceans that strongly features ‘blue carbon’. Through initiatives such as the UN Environment Blue Forests Project, GRID-Arendal has long worked on blue carbon , a strategic approach to protecting ocean ecosystems as a way of fighting climate change, but it has not gotten a lot of high-profile attention – until now, at this week’s international climate change discussions and, through Senator Warren, in US polices. Warren’s proposal is the first of its kind in the 2020 US presidential race.
Her oceans plan focusses on a variety of coastal and marine issues, including sustainable ocean-based jobs (the ‘blue economy’), renewable energy, maritime food security, marine protected areas, and, notably, how the US government can play a role in both climate change adaptation and mitigation through ocean conservation and regeneration.
Warren specifically calls for establishing a national blue carbon programme and ensuring funding for blue carbon research. From her plan:
"Invest in marine carbon sequestration
Not all carbon in the ocean is bad. Blue carbon, or carbon stored in ocean and coastal ecosystems, is naturally sequestered by coral reefs and oyster reefs, mangrove forests and kelp forests, as well as seagrass beds and wetlands. If managed correctly, the ocean can continue to naturally sequester carbon. I will issue an Executive Order directing NOAA to build a domestic blue carbon program that will support ocean-based carbon sequestration projects, including coastal ecosystem restoration programs, just like we have for land-based carbon markets.
I will also direct NOAA to map and establish “Blue Carbon Zones” in federal waters, so that we can identify, protect, and manage these highly productive areas. While we can do more right now to further support blue carbon, we also need to make sure NOAA and the National Science Foundation have the funding they need to continue cutting edge research on blue carbon and ocean acidification."
‘It’s the first policy plan in the 2020 presidential field to focus explicitly on the role government can play in both reducing the impacts of climate change on oceans and using oceans as a tool to fight the crisis,’ reports the news site Grist. And it shows ‘politicians are increasingly taking cues from scientists as they build out their climate agendas.’
© 2026 Blue Forests Project
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