Importance of Marine plants for our Climate!

The importance of marine plants should never be undermined. Marine plant life could actually be the perfect solution to preventing global warming. It is amazing that marine plant life actually sucks 2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year. However, most of the plankton responsible never reaches the seabed to become a permanent carbon store. Their capacity to absorb the emissions is under threat. However, the habitats are being lost at a rate of up to 7 per cent a year, up to 15 times faster than the tropical rainforests. Now, a third has already been lost. This is because, 50 per cent of the world’s population lives within 65 miles of the sea, thus human pressures on nearshore waters are powerful. Thus, Ocean fertilization, the process of adding iron or other nutrients to the ocean to cause large algae blooms, has been proposed as a possible solution to global warming because the growing algae absorb carbon dioxide as they grow. However, brown algae , which is the largest, most complex type of algae in U.S. waters are destroyed by the ballast water on ships coming from Europe.Thus, a lot of measures have been implemented to prevent further destruction to the marine plants. To protect them, a Blue Carbon Fund will be launched to help developing nations to protect the habitats. Oceanic carbon sinks should also be traded in the same fashion as terrestrial forests. Together with the UN’s scheme to reduce deforestation, they could deliver up to 25 per cent of emission reductions needed to keep global warming below 2C (36F). Thus this will not only help to save the marine life but also the climate.