C-BLUES will significantly advance knowledge and understanding of blue carbon ecosystems seagrasses, tidal marshes, mangroves, macroalgae, and macroalgae mariculture.

C-BLUES is aiming to achieve three overarching objectives:

1. develop new scientific knowledge within blue carbon ecosystems to reduce scientific uncertainty and improve reporting of blue carbon under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

2. provide input to a possible revision of the 2013 IPCC Wetlands Supplement to increase inclusion of coastal wetlands in national greenhouse gas inventories and reporting

3. raise awareness and promote the role of blue carbon for delivering global climate policy commitments in collaboration with Chinese and other international partners.

C-BLUES will perform the following:

• Produce spatial maps, methodological best practices and standard operating procedures

• Enable more robust and reliable quantification of carbon emissions and sequestration

• Model sequestration capacity and upscale regional and global greenhouse gas budgets

• Assess carbon stock changes, greenhouse gas emissions and removals related to different management interventions and human activities

• Review legal and institutional frameworks governing blue carbon ecosystems

• Assess the drivers and barriers for integrating coastal wetlands into national reporting mechanisms under the UNFCCC.