Areas of Expertise:
ocean and coastal policy, environmental economics, ecosystem services, climate adaption
Linwood Pendleton directs the Ocean and Coastal Policy Program at Duke University's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions. Pendleton’s work focuses on policies that affect human uses and enjoyment of ocean and coastal resources – both living and non-living. He is the Director of the Marine Ecosystem Services Partnership, author of many scholarly articles, and coordinates the Marine Secretariat of the international Ecosystem Services Partnership. Pendleton’s current projects include work with the United Nations Environment Program’s Green Economy Project, UNEP GRID Arendal’s High Level Steering Committee on Deep Sea Mineral Resources in the Pacific, and Blue Carbon Economics (joint with Brian Murray, also from the Institute). Pendleton has served as Acting Chief Economist at NOAA since January 2011.
He holds a doctoral degree in resource and environmental economics from Yale University; a Master's degree in public administration from Harvard’s Kennedy School; a Master's degree in ecology, evolution, and behavior from Princeton; and a Bachelor's degree in biology from the College of William and Mary.
Recent attention has focused on the high rates of annual carbon sequestration in vegetated coastal ecosystems—marshes, mangroves, and seagrasses—that may be lost with habitat destruction. Relatively unappreciated, however, is that conversion of these coastal ecosystems also impacts very large pools of previously-sequestered carbon. Residing mostly in sediments, this ‘blue carbon’ can be released to the atmosphere when these ecosystems are converted or degraded. Here we provide the first global estimates of this impact and evaluate its economic implications. Combining the best available data on global area, land-use conversion rates, and near-surface carbon stocks in each of the three ecosystems, using an uncertainty-propagation approach, we estimate that 0.15–1.02 billion tons of carbon dioxide are being released annually, several times higher than previous estimates that account only for lost sequestration.
Author(s):Linwood Pendleton, Daniel C. Donato, Brian C. Murray, Stephen Crooks, W. Aaron Jenkins, Samantha Sifleet, Christopher Craft, James W. Fourqurean, J. Boone Kauffman, Núria Marbà, Patrick Megonigal, Emily Pidgeon, Dorothee Herr, David Gordon, Alexis Baldera
Blue carbon has been defined as “the carbon stored, sequestered or released from coastal ecosystems of tidal marshes, mangroves and seagrass meadows.” These marine and coastal ecosystems store large amounts of carbon in the plants and the sediment below them. When these ecosystems are degraded or destroyed, significant amounts of carbon dioxide are released into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change risk. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has considered conserving and restoring forests an important aspect of climate change mitigation through its REDD+ (reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation) mechanism. Broadening these approaches to include other natural systems, such as blue carbon ecosystems, could help reduce emissions from the degradation and destruction of these areas as well. This policy brief examines the evolution of blue carbon in the UNFCCC process—how it entered, where it stands, and what path lies ahead.
Author(s):Brian C. Murray, Colette E. Watt, David M. Cooley, and Linwood H. Pendleton
Many federal statutes and policies specifically require that impacts on ecosystem services be considered in policy implementation. Some federal policies directly include the economic value of certain ecosystem services in estimates of economic impact. Yet, we are unaware of a single federal statute, regulation, or policy that accounts directly for the carbon held in coastal habitats. Explicitly accounting for coastal carbon could change the outcome of federal policy actions for variety of federal statutes and policies, including the National Environmental Policy Act, Clean Water Act, and others. These statutes and policies allow for agency discretion in deciding which ecosystem services to include when considering alternative policies, plans, actions, and even assessments of the economic costs of damages to coastal ecosystems. Coastal carbon is an ecosystem service that could be included.
Author(s):Linwood Pendleton, David Gordon, Brian Murray, Britta Victor, Roger Griffis, Ariana Sutton-Grier, and Jen Lechuga
The International Seabed Authority in collaboration with the Government of Fiji and the SOPAC Division of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community held a Workshop on Environmental Management Needs for Exploration and Exploitation
of Deep Sea Minerals, in Nadi, Fiji.This initiative reflected the increasing interest in and associated concerns about the potential environmental impacts of deep sea minerals exploration and mining and how competent authorities at the national and international level will regulate this emerging economic development opportunity in a sustainable manner in areas within and beyond national jurisdiction. This document contains the outcomes of the discussions at the workshop.
