Cross-Border, Nature Based Market Solutions to Protect Blue Carbon Coastal Ecosystems in the Californias

March 2022

biologically diverse area in the continental United States. 8

A key objective of this report is to examine potential financing options for such cross-border collaboration with an emphasis on promoting the conservation of priority habitat for migratory birds found in Southern California, that are also co-located in coastal wetlands and adjoining coastal landscapes along the Baja California peninsula. The financing options we explore include, most importantly, tapping California’s Environmental Quality Act and its cap and trade program. We also address options in the international, voluntary carbon markets, as well as Mexico’s own emissions trading system. The premise of all options is based on the fact that these coastal, blue-carbon assets provide carbon sequestering potential if properly conserved, as well as other ecosystem services (ESS) that have value to the entire region and the communities inhabiting it. In that way, the value of such assets is meant to flow towards the stewards of such lands as a compensation for its conservation. In addition, this strategy is meant to promote Nature-based Solutions (NbS) to climate change, i.e. strategies that rely on the conservation of blue carbon assets to avoid greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and/or to sequester them from the atmosphere. NbS and ESS strategies are aligned with both the Paris Agreements 13 and the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. 14 Here, we base our work on the premise that climate change and biodiversity loss are inextricably linked. With the latent risk of california-land-to-fight-climate-change-conserve biodiversity-and-boost-climate-resilience/ 12 https://www.gov.ca.gov/2019/12/04/governor newsom-and-governors-from-baja-california-states re-establish-commission-of-the-californias/ 13 https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/english_paris_a greement.pdf 14 https://www.cbd.int

Given growing development pressures in Southern California and the shared interest in protecting similar threatened and endangered migratory birds, the potential exists for binational climate action that could benefit the residents and ecosystems of California, Baja California and Baja California Sur. This potential could build upon efforts by the State of California to meet its own carbon reduction targets under the Paris Agreement pursuant to AB-32 9 and other mitigation options in support of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), 10 as well as to support Governor Newsom’s executive order EO 82-20 committing to protect 30% of California’s lands and coastal waters by 2030 through the state’s 30X30 initiative. 11 Such binational collaboration also has the potential to build upon pre-COVID-19 efforts by the State of California, Baja California and Baja California Sur to re establish the Commission of the Californias (COC). 12 The Institute of the Americas (IOA) in partnership with Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO), Pronatura Noroeste (PNO) and the UC San Diego Center for U.S-Mexico Studies (USMEX), have prepared this report in an effort to promote expanded binational climate action as well as the protection of shared biodiversity across the Californias, including priority endangered and threatened species of common interest. 8 State Wildlife Action Plan, Vol I, Chapter 5 , page 5.5-4 https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentI D=109212&inline 9 Adopted pursuant to the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32): https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/resources/fact-sheets/ab 32-global-warming-solutions-act-2006 10 https://opr.ca.gov/ceqa/climate-change.html 11 https://www.gov.ca.gov/2020/10/07/governor newsom-launches-innovative-strategies-to-use

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