觀點氣候變化

Turning whales into carbon-based assets won’t be easy

We have allowed the natural capital on which we all depend to be depreciated off the books

The writer is a science commentator

Whale poo is like environmental gold dust. It is rich in iron, phosphorus and nitrogen, among the nutrients that phytoplankton, the algae at the bottom of the marine food chain, need to grow.

Phytoplankton produces more than half of the world’s oxygen and sucks as much carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere as four Amazon rainforests. More whales equals more phytoplankton — and therefore more carbon removal. According to Connel Fullenkamp, an economics professor at Duke University in North Carolina, that equation renders great whales, or rather their carbon capture and sequestration services, a potentially valuable and tradeable asset.

您已閱讀15%(675字),剩餘85%(3838字)包含更多重要資訊,訂閱以繼續探索完整內容,並享受更多專屬服務。
版權聲明:本文版權歸FT中文網所有,未經允許任何單位或個人不得轉載,複製或以任何其他方式使用本文全部或部分,侵權必究。
設置字型大小×
最小
較小
默認
較大
最大
分享×