Blue Carbon Cooperation in the Maritime Silk Road with Network Game Model and Simulation

The blue carbon cooperation is a joint effort of the countries along the Maritime Silk Road (MSR) to utilize marine activities and organisms to absorb and store carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, an initiative that has great strategic value for coping with the most important environmental problems in the 21st century and promoting the building of a community with shared aspirations for mankind’s future. This research combines the decision-making structure model with the reality of the blue carbon cooperation game of the MSR to make conditional assumptions and carry out model construction. It uses the simulation method to test the influencing factors such as decision-maker type, initial input cost, continuous input maintenance cost, rate of return, carbon tax rate and others. The results suggest that initial and continuous input costs, returns, and neighbor subsidies have positive impacts on blue carbon cooperation, while carbon tax rates and income discount rates have negative impacts on blue carbon cooperation. To promote blue carbon cooperation along the MSR, emphasis should be placed on the design of incentive and subsidy mechanisms, together with the appropriate punishment mechanisms.