Australia's coastal ecosystems alone save the rest of the world around $23 billion US a year by absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere. This is according to calculations just published by researchers at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), GEOMAR Helmholtz-Centre for Ocean Research, Kiel University and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv). Coastal ecosystems such as seagrass meadows, salt marshes and mangrove forests make an important contribution to mitigating climate change.