Japan Launches Offshore Blue Carbon Research to Scale Marine CO₂ Capture
- Strategic Pivot: Japan aims to scale blue carbon capture from 34 tonnes (2023) to 2 million tonnes by 2040.
- New Partnerships: Collaboration includes the Environment Ministry, Eneos Corp, and JAMSTEC to assess deep-sea CO₂ storage.
- Decarbonisation Push: Initiative supports Japan’s 2050 net-zero goal amid waning forest absorption capacity.
Japan is moving forward with a large-scale offshore research program to explore “blue carbon” solutions—harnessing marine vegetation like seaweed and mangroves to absorb and store carbon dioxide in deep-sea environments.
This strategy, backed by Japan’s Environment Ministry, is designed to complement existing decarbonisation efforts and help the country meet its 2050 net-zero emissions target. A senior ministry official noted,
“CO₂ is highly soluble in seawater, and marine vegetation naturally absorbs it as it grows. If we can demonstrate a technology to enable CO₂ fixation on the seafloor, it could be a significant source of carbon absorption.”
The government will commission the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), Eneos Corp, and other stakeholders to study the behaviour of submerged seaweed at depth and assess the ecological impact of seafloor-based carbon storage.
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Blue carbon—carbon sequestered in marine ecosystems—has gained attention as a potent alternative to land-based (green) carbon solutions, particularly as Japan’s forests, which currently absorb ~45 million tonnes of CO₂ annually, lose capacity due to aging.
In fiscal 2023, coastal marine plants in Japan sequestered just 34 tonnes of CO₂. The government has now set bold targets:
- 1 million tonnes annually by 2035
- 2 million tonnes annually by 2040
This emerging initiative signals a diversification of Japan’s carbon strategy, leveraging ocean ecosystems to reinforce national climate resilience.
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