What is blue carbon?
- (a) Carbon captured by oceans and coastal ecosystems ✓ UPSC's answer
- (b) Carbon sequestered in forest biomass and agricultural soils
- (c) Carbon contained in petroleum and natural gas
- (d) Carbon present in atmosphere
Why the answer is (a)
• Blue carbon is the carbon captured and stored by ocean and coastal ecosystems — mangroves, salt marshes and seagrass meadows — in their biomass and, especially, their sediments (option a).
• These habitats store carbon per unit area several times faster than terrestrial forests and hold it for millennia if undisturbed.
• Carbon in forests and soils (b) is 'green carbon'; fossil-fuel carbon (c) and atmospheric CO2 (d) are not blue carbon.
• India's mangroves (Sundarbans, Bhitarkanika) are its main blue-carbon stock; MISHTI is the national mangrove initiative.
• Hence option (a).
Why the other options are wrong
- (b) Carbon sequestered in forest biomass and agricultural soils
- Forest and soil carbon is green carbon, not blue.
- (c) Carbon contained in petroleum and natural gas
- Fossil-fuel carbon is not blue carbon.
- (d) Carbon present in atmosphere
- Atmospheric carbon is not blue carbon.
Asked in the GS Paper I of the UPSC Civil Services Preliminary Examination 2021, held on 10 October 2021. Question and answer key: Union Public Service Commission. Explanation: UPSC Answer Check.