Blue carbon rule of law approach based on climate and ocean collaborative governance

In response to the dual needs of enhancing national independent contribution and coastal climate resilience, activating blue carbon potential through the rule of law will provide new productivity for promoting the high-quality development of marine economy and help realize China’s “double carbon” strategy in the new era. Many of China’s existing marine laws are unable to satisfy the requirements for the comprehensive protection of blue carbon ecosystems. With unclear blue carbon property rights, an imperfect trading market, and prominent difficulties in land-sea spatial governance, the blue carbon legal framework is confronted with multiple obstacles. To tackle these issues, the construction of blue carbon rule of law should innovate its legal concepts, regulatory objects, right structures, and legal mechanisms, coordinate domestic and foreign-related blue carbon legal systems, and thus open up five dimensions for exploring the development path of blue carbon rule of law. Furthermore, we should realize the value integration and institutional coordination of climate and marine governance through legislation, accelerate the construction of blue carbon market mechanisms, strengthen the land-sea coordinated governance in blue carbon rule of law, and improve the legal guarantee for polycentric governance, so as to achieve the dual goals of increasing carbon sinks, reducing emissions and marine ecological protection.