Incorporating blue carbon into climate change mitigation policies: Multi-level governance challenges for carbon credits and NDCs

Expectations are high for countries that conserve and restore blue carbon ecosystems (BCEs) such as mangrove forests and seagrass meadows to integrate blue carbon into their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement, or trade blue carbon credits on the carbon market. These expectations are set by international actors steering a blue carbon ‘agenda’ that attempts to promote and operationalise blue carbon projects as nature-based solutions to mitigate climate change. Yet, across most Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and other coastal nations, project implementation is limited. Through the theoretical lens of multilevel governance (MLG) combined with empirical findings from Fiji, we demonstrate how and why this international agenda is seldom implemented, administratively or in practice, at national and subnational governance levels. Findings reveal challenges such as technocratic methodologies, limited high resolution data, fickle funding priorities, overlapping bureaucracy, limited knowledge sharing, low additionality, and complex Indigenous community structures that problematise the local distribution of financial benefits. We argue that institutional misalignment between governance levels can create a state of ‘blue carbon inertia’ around credit trade and NDC integration. Moreover, we caution that international inculcation, expertise, and agenda-setting may not always be desired nor effective at lower levels of environmental governance. • An international agenda exists to promote and operationalise blue carbon projects. • Projects may result in the trade of blue carbon credits, or integration into NDCs. • Multi-level governance challenges can impede realisation of this agenda. • Empirical evidence from Fiji reveals how and why this can occur in practice. • International inculcation, expertise, and agenda-setting may not always be desired.