“Charismatic carbon” or Carbon offset projects are the projects to fix carbon released due to the release of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, having a “golden touch” of benefits which improve the livelihood of people involved or around the world. The term ‘charismatic carbon’: a term coined by Scientific American in 2006 refers to accessing carbon from grassroots projects , or carbon that is stored in trees or in other organic matter that are rare and valuable. By supporting Charismatic carbon/carbon offset projects, you can offset emissions that are currently unavoidable and hence reduce your overall environmental impact.
The proponents of 'charismatic carbon,' look for 'small scale, cute and cuddly carbon projects' to increase the appeal of carbon credits’ marketing. Charismatic carbon projects tell stories about the reduction of carbon emissions and social co-benefits that support poor people - especially women - in the Globe.
In many of these projects, the people/organisation/country which emit green house gases and cause detrimental global warming, will pay a good amount (which is equal to the the amount of CO2 they emit) so that other agencies can fix that much carbon dioxide . In such cases the agencies which fix carbon will be monitorily or secondarily benefitted so as to encourage all to fix green house gases. For example, if I own a refinery, and my refinery in a place falls under that state’s climate laws, I'm supposed to reduce my emissions by a certain amount, by paying someone, somewhere else, to reduce one ton of their CO2 emissions than it would be for me to reduce my own emissions.
A number of Carbon offset projects are proposed and running at many places.
1. Seaweed farming
Seaweed is recommended as a handsome Carbon offset project. This could regionally offset carbon emissions from agriculture and provide additional benefits by restoring coastal habitats and alleviating ocean acidity. According to Froehlich and co-authors Jamie Afferbach, Melanie Frazier and Benjamin Halpern from the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, who synthesized diverse datasets from scientific literature, seaweed aquaculture could indeed be a powerful new way to sequester carbon. The process would involve cultivating seaweed and harvesting it for the purpose of sinking the algae in the deeper ocean, where the carbon stored in its tissues would remain ‘buried.’ We like to call it ‘charismatic carbon’ because it has additional benefits,” Froehlich said, “such as potentially providing habitat for fish and other marine life, reducing ocean acidification and oxygen depletion, and taking up excess nutrients in local areas.”
Seaweed cultivation’s beneficial climate effects far outweigh the fact that it can’t completely offset the country’s food production greenhouse gas emissions.“We really wanted to know if it could be beneficial, but also be realistic about its potential,” Froehlich said of the research, which they bounded with constraints including nutrients, temperature and geographic suitability, as well as assessed production growth and cost. The researchers also investigated the mitigation potential on various scales with a focus on the food sector — a major source of greenhouse gases and considerable hurdle to fight climate change.
There is substantial suitable area — roughly 48 million square kilometers — in which seaweed could be farmed, and a relatively small proportion (0.001%) would be enough to render the entire global aquaculture industry carbon neutral, according to the study. Altogether, the ecosystem services provided by brown algal forests are conservatively estimated to value USD $500,000–1,000,000 per year per km of coastline (Filbee-Dexter and Wernberg, 2018). Given that forests of large brown algae dominate approximately 25% of the world’s coastlines (Wernberg et al., 2019), the global value of ecosystem services provided by brown algae is likely to be in the hundreds of billions of USD per year.
In addition to the indirect benefits of reducing carbon emissions, what make brown algae farming “Charismatic” are the other benefits. Brown algae have long been used as a food source by human communities with coastal access. The global harvest of brown macroalgae from wild stocks is estimated at more than half a million tonnes per year and has been increasing in recent decades. The polysaccharide metabolism of brown algae is unique among photoautotrophs (including red and green algae) and many of these polysaccharides are desirable for their bioactive properties. For example, fucose-containing sulfated polysaccharides (FCSPs), found in the cell wall and extracellular matrices of brown algae have anti-inflammatory, anti-viral, anti-biotic, anti-oxidant, anti-coagulant, and anti-adhesive properties and are widely used in medicine and cosmetics. Alginates, carbohydrate polymers made up of mannuronic and guluronic acids act as gelling agents in food products, have medical and commercial applications as absorbents and serve as the basis of macroalgal bio-fuel development. Brown algae also concentrate halogens, such as iodine, as a means of coping with various forms of stress (e.g. heat stress, ultraviolet radiation, herbivory, and oxidative stress. As a result of micronutrient sequestration, brown algae are harvested and sold commercially as dietary supplements, both for human consumption and for animal feed .
Some of the other “Charismatic carbon projects are the following.
2. Reforestation of one million acre land art Mississippi river Basin. Once completed, over 100 million trees will be planted, 200,000,000MT CO2will be sequestered and over 12 billion dollars in economic value will be generated. Restoration at this scale ensures that biodiversity, habitats and communities are enhanced and supported in self-sustaining systems, all while mitigating climate change.
3. Whales
Just as trees store carbon on land, the giant bodies of whales lock up carbon at sea. But a century of whaling has reduced the numbers of many species — including blue, humpback and bowhead whales — by more than 75%. Andrew Pershing at the University of Maine in Orono and his colleagues estimate that pre-industrial whale populations held almost 9 million tonnes more carbon than do today's whales, equivalent to more than 110,000 hectares of forest. That carbon hasn't just shifted around in the food chain, the researchers say, because whales store more carbon than smaller animals, such as penguins, given the same amount of food. Helping to rebuild whale numbers could provide the world with a blubbery carbon sink.
4. Tanzania, along with several other less industrialised countries, argues that with a per person annual carbon emission of 1.2 tonnes per year (compared to the UK’s 10.7 tonnes per person per year, and America’s 23.5) has plenty of ‘surplus’ carbon to sell to the industrialised world. Much of this remains locked up in its extensive forests, which some believe could be worth up to $500m a year to the country. There are already many existing schemes to encourage villagers to manage and cultivate wooded environments: from managed charcoal schemes, to medicinal plant collecting and bee-keeping. The country is replete with unusual rare hardwood: from African Blackwood (Dalbergia melanoxylon, called locally mpingo) which is used for clarinets and oboes to valuable timbers like Mninga (Pterocarpus spp. - like cedar and mahogany), and Milicia excelsa (similar to mahogany) which can only be cut under licence.
Mammen Daniel
