Professor Queirós on the importance of climate literacy for stakeholders to invest in solutions

30 August 2023

Listen to the full podcast here >>

Professor Queirós was selected last November for the 2022 AXA Investment Managers Research Award, in partnership with the AXA Research Fund. The €100,000 award honours the impact of her work focused on ocean management strategies that enhance ecosystems’ abilities to adapt to climate change (“climate-smart” management) and to act as carbon sinks (blue carbon). Professor Queiros' research seeks to generate recommendations for ocean management strategies that protect nature whilst being socially and economically viable.
 
Snippet of podcast below:

Herschel Pant (host): “Hello and welcome to Sound Progress, the AXA IM Podcast, where we meet the people driving climate progress. Did you know that 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by water and of this, 96% is in our oceans. It's this natural capital that makes life possible for all of us. But do our oceans also hold the key to fighting climate change?

And if so, how can we as investors, protect our oceans and more widely, biodiversity loss by investing in both public and private markets? It's not an easy question for one person. So, I asked three people, I'm Hirshberg and I'm delighted to take you with me on this journey to discover the power of blue waters.
We start a deep dive into all things ocean - no pun intended - with the view from the scientific community. Professor Ana Queiros is a Senior Benthic Ecologist at Plymouth Marine Laboratory and the winner of the 2022 AXA IM Research Award and has dedicated her work to understanding our oceans and coastlines, and how they can play a pivotal role in saving our planet. Let's see what Ana can tell us about blue carbon.”

Professor Ana Queiros: “We use the term to refer to the ability of the ocean to serve as a carbon sink. So, what that means is the way in which coastal and open ocean systems capture CO₂ from the atmosphere - and capture more than they release. So, they have a net positive effect on carbon concentrations in the atmosphere.”

Herschel Pant (host): “Straightforward, right? But how exactly does that work? We know it isn't the water itself that's acting as the carbon sink. So, what or who is doing all this work?”

Professor Ana Queiros: “In the past, blue carbon was used traditionally to refer to coastal vegetated habitats. So that means particularly mangrove seagrass and saltmarsh ecosystems, which cover a little fringe in some areas of our coastal areas.

And they are very important habitats because they are biodiversity hotspots, and they also serve as carbon sinks. The plants in these habitats capture CO₂ from the atmosphere and turn it into their living biomass, and that biomass eventually degrades and falls on the soil, which then captures that carbon for, hundreds of years potentially. More recently, we started looking more broadly into the open ocean and thinking about what other aspects with other parts of the ocean provide this service.

And there are many. So, phytoplankton also being photosynthetic organisms, also fixed carbon microalgae in particular seaweed kelp. They do this very well. In fact, in some areas of the planet, they are the most productive of such organisms. So, they have the highest rates of CO₂ capture.”

Herschel Pant (host): “What can we do with this knowledge? How can we at AXA IM help?”
 
Listen to the full podcast here >>