Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal: Getting Evidence for Decision Making This Decade

The most recent Emissions Gap Report from the United Nations indicates that the world is on a path towards between 2.5-3.0°C of warming, far from the stated goals of the Paris Agreement of limiting warming to 1.5°C. Such a path poses grave risks to climate stability, biodiversity, and human flourishing on this planet. To close the gap between our existing path and the Paris Agreement, much less a restored climate, requires increased ambition to both decarbonize our society and actively remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Among the options for greenhouse gas removal, marine pathways stand out for their high potential and underinvestment of global time, money, and energy to date.

 

Ocean Visions, working alongside a network of partners around the world, has a multi-pronged agenda to accelerate progress on marine carbon dioxide removal approaches. Our work is centered on support for accelerated research and development, including field research, to answer the fundamental questions that exist regarding whether or not to deploy any specific marine carbon dioxide removal techniques at climate-relevant scales. We believe this work must be done in a transparent, controlled manner; subject to a code of conduct to govern the research activities; and in consultation and cooperation with local authorities, all affected communities, and rights holders. In our work, we explicitly seek to increase diversity and size of the global community engaged to solve these challenges. Importantly, we believe that it is premature to take positions on whether or not to deploy any of these technologies while the existing science, engineering, and governance gaps remain so large.

 

We advance this work using two complementary approaches. First, we develop open-access products, such as interactive road maps, research frameworks, field trials databases, site suitability planning tools, and more to help the global community identify and address existing knowledge gaps in science, engineering, policy, governance, and justice. Second, we facilitate, convene, and catalyze conversations to increase collective understanding, attention, and problem solving dedicated to achieving ocean-climate stability, including marine carbon dioxide removal.

 

We believe that it is critical to generate the base of knowledge this decade that allows us to make informed decisions about the efficacy and impacts of marine carbon dioxide removal approaches. We’ve laid out a course of work that has to happen between now and 2030 to give us information that allows us to take action, or not, on marine carbon dioxide removal approaches as part of a climate solutions portfolio.

 

This plan of action is highly aligned with the UN Ocean Decade’s motto of “the science we need for the ocean we want”. In this presentation, we will assess how collective progress is shaping up against these stated goals for the end of the decade, assess the gaps, talk about the work that is underway to close these gaps, and highlight critical areas and gaps of needed attention and innovation for the international community and the UN Ocean Decade to direct focus and effort.