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UK's secret weapon against climate change, hidden under the sea (inews.co.uk)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Hundreds of millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide are being stored in the UK’s seabeds, according to a world-first report that sets out to quantify the role Britain’s coastal waters can play in the fight against climate change.

The study, known as the Blue Carbon Mapping Project, found the UK’s seabed habitats have the potential to capture up to 13 million tonnes of organic carbon every year, almost three times the amount sequestered by the UK’s forests.

But despite the role it plays as a huge carbon sink, the UK’s seabeds are not protected in the same way as other carbon sequestering habitats, such as forests and peatlands.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Extremely misleading title.

It isn't a weapon that can be used to fight CO2 emissions.

Its a pre existing carbon natural sink which:

“If we don’t protect it and manage it correctly, it could actually worsen climate change.”

Is actually a vulnerable resource that needs to be better managed. That's the last line of the article.

No where in the article is there any even theoretical discussion of how seafloor habitats can somehow be made to absorb more CO2, closest the article comes to that is 'we should look into how to do that.'

The rest of the article is about dangers to disrupting the natural habitat and thus negating a carbon sink.

This is not a story about a weapon, an arrow in a quiver aimed at climate change, its a story about a delicate exposed heel, which might actually end up being pierced by a different climate change weapon, offshore wind farms.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

I came to the comments to say this, but I couldn't say it better than you have here.