In 10 seconds? Increasing and restoring whale populations would be help in the fight against climate change and for conservation. A recent (2022) paper has added to the research evidence about whales’ carbon capture potential.
What’s the story? It’s not news that our oceans sequester the most CO2 from the atmosphere – a whopping 40 percent – but the role of whales has not received enough attention so far. A recent paper used a 2019 IMF report (more below) as a launchpad to investigate whales’ contributions to carbon sequestering but was critical of the IMF optimistic estimate of a whale's value.