Blue carbon ecosystems—mangroves, salt marshes, and seagrass beds—sit at the intersection of climate mitigation, coastal adaptation, biodiversity conservation, and sustainable development. In China, blue carbon has moved rapidly from scientific concept to policy agenda through carbon peaking policy, marine ecological restoration, and the reactivated national voluntary greenhouse gas emission reduction market. Yet blue carbon governance remains institutionally fragile. Existing debates often discuss resource potential, project methodologies, market design, and policy texts separately. This leaves the ecology–policy interface underexamined. Drawing on national policy and planning documents issued between 2021 and April 2026, official project methodology and market rules, peer-reviewed literature, and reported pilot practice, this article examines how ecological differences, institutional rules, project mechanisms, and sustainable development claims interact in China’s blue carbon governance. The analysis shows that current national crediting arrangements are strongest for restoration interventions entering the China Certified Emission Reductions (CCER) system. The broader governance chain remains incomplete. Ecologically distinct systems are still often treated as a single governance object, although national estimates, CCER methodology parameters, and project cost evidence show clear differences in carbon stocks, soil carbon accumulation, monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) burden, and reversal risk. Resource rights, project development rights, carbon revenues, and stewardship duties remain weakly connected. Market instruments are only partly coordinated with public compensation and blended finance, and local pilots are generating projects faster than reusable rules. A stronger governance approach should distinguish among ecosystem types and action categories. It should build a layered MRV system, link revenues to long-term stewardship and local or community benefit sharing arrangements, and create a route for converting pilot experience into cross-regional rules.
Zheng et al. (Wed,) studied this question.