Synergy between law and policy: a research on the construction of a multi-stakeholder collaborative governance model for marine blue carbon in China

As a critical green productivity driving the implementation of China’s “dual carbon” strategy, enhancing the protection and governance system for marine blue carbon is a crucial measure to steadily advance the goals of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality. The promulgation of the Ecological Environmental Code of the People’s Republic of China marks a new phase of codification in China’s ecological environment governance, establishing a fundamental rule of law framework for ecological carbon sinks at the top-level legislative level. However, specialized regulatory provisions targeting marine blue carbon remain insufficient. From the dual perspectives of law and policy, this paper identifies several bottlenecks in China’s marine blue carbon governance. First, current legal norms are inadequately aligned with the practical needs of marine blue carbon conservation, and the rule of law safeguard system remains incomplete. Second, the implementation of supporting policies has been hindered, resulting in sluggish development of blue carbon market-based trading mechanisms and a lack of operational momentum. Third, there are discrepancies between policies and laws, limiting the overall effectiveness of existing ecological conservation models. Based on this, the paper adopts the perspective of law and policy collaboration and explores a marine blue carbon collaborative governance model tailored to China’s national conditions through three pathways: improving the specialized legislative system for marine blue carbon, leveraging policy empowerment to innovate market-based operational mechanisms, and integrating regulations and policies to establish a multi- stakeholder collaborative regulatory framework. This also aims to provide Chinese experience and institutional references for global marine blue carbon ecological governance.