John Liu planted a seed that blossomed into a movement. The documentary filmmaker, environmental educator and father of the Ecosystems Restoration Camps movement joined us for the fourth Boulder Forum on Economy, Climate and Community panel.

UDI, the Trust for Public Land, and other partners have built a new urban lands carbon management analysis and decision support tool that can analyze data to project where and how much carbon we can capture and what critical life support services—reducing extreme heat, absorbing stormwater, reducing air pollution—this carbon drawdown can achieve.

Given the very high likelihood we will overshoot our emissions reduction targets, carbon removal is now an absolute necessity for avoiding worst-case scenarios.

Carbon storage and sequestration by urban trees in the United States was quantified to assess the magnitude and role of urban forests in relation to climate change. Urban tree field data from 28 cities and 6 states were used to determine the average carbon density per unit of tree cover.

In order to define Blue Carbon more accurately, we investigated a new concept, namely, Urban Blue Carbon, which is composed of complex components produced by cities and urban areas. For this research, we conducted a field study to measure the CO2 absorption and fixation volume of Urban Blue Carbon.

This data on the Boundary Bay salt marsh will provide policy-relevant carbon estimates for municipalities (Delta and Surrey) and the BC government. If carbon services can be accurately measured when assessing a coastal ecosystem, then these services may be introduced as an added benefit when decision-makers consider plans for managing or preserving the ecosystem.

A Philanthropic Action Guide.