Front Matter | A Research Strategy for Ocean-based Carbon Dioxide Removal and Sequestration | The National Academies Presshttps://www.nap.edu/read/26278/chapter/1#iiIs ‘hacking’ the ocean a climate change solution? U.S. experts endorse research on carbon-removal strategies.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2021/12/08/climate-change-ocean-carbon-storage/the 300-page report from one of the country’s top research organizations argues that the United States should at least investigate whether ocean-based carbon-removal strategies are worthwhile.
The new report — released Wednesday and sponsored by ClimateWorks, a San Francisco-based nonprofit group — is adamant that carbon-dioxide removal is not a substitute for immediately eliminating fossil fuel use and curbing greenhouse gas pollution. It does not endorse any of the six strategies it considers or even advocate for CDR to be deployed.
Instead, it outlines a 10-year, $1.1 billion research program that would fill in crucial knowledge gaps about each technology.
Some of the questions are purely scientific, Doney said: “Does it actually work? Does it store carbon for sufficiently long periods of time? What are the environmental impacts?”
Many more questions are legal, economic or ethical: “How would you govern this? What are the dimensions of social acceptability?” Doney said. “If you could slow climate change or stabilize climate at a lower warming level, is that worth the trade-offs of these deliberate changes to the ocean? … These are things society needs to decide.”
The report also recommends the development of a research code of conduct for ocean-based CDR, with stipulations that the experiments be tightly regulated and involve experts from Indigenous groups and other vulnerable communities. The scientists say the $125 million foundational research agenda must include surveys, legal analyses and in-depth interviews with the people whose lives and livelihoods will be affected by the projects.
Experiments should be “co-produced with communities,” said Holly Buck, a sociologist at the University at Buffalo and a contributor to the report. Including locals in the design and deployment of projects will make them more equitable and could reveal insights scientists had never considered.
And researchers must be willing to change course, Doney said, if their work turns out to be ineffective or dangerous, or if more powerful methods come to light.
“This is the kind of deep dive we need,” said Kim Cobb, a climate scientist and oceanographer at the Georgia Institute of Technology who was not involved in the National Academies study. “It helps us to understand the potential benefits and downside risks and all the warts that you don’t get in the battles that are waged on op-ed pages.”l