Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal Explained: Potential Ocean-Climate Solutions, Risks, and Community Considerations
Please join us for coffee, soft drinks, snacks, and networking beginning at 1:30pm. The session will begin at 2pm and run for 90 minutes. Carbon 180, Carbon to Sea, and Ocean Visions invite attendees to join an ocean-climate reception following the panel.
Alongside deep and rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, large-scale carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is now recognized as crucial to meeting international climate agreements and ensuring a safe climate for existing and future generations. Ocean-based CDR, also known as marine CDR (mCDR), is a nascent portfolio of potential strategies that mimic and enhance the ocean’s natural capacity to cycle carbon out of the atmosphere and transform it into inert forms sequestered in the deep sea. mCDR methods are being developed, tested, revised, and re-tested all across the world. If mCDR is proven effective and safe, it could help achieve the levels of carbon dioxide removal needed ed to counterbalance hard-to-abate emissions and achieve net-zero climate goals. However, additional research is needed to address uncertainties regarding efficacy, ecosystem impacts, governance, and responsible scaling.
During this session, speakers from Ocean Visions, Carbon180, and the Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes at Arizona State University will provide attendees with a primer on mCDR and share their experiences working in the developing field of ocean conservation. Attendees can also expect to learn about community engagement, co-design, and other capacity-building efforts in the mCDR field. Specific place-based examples of those efforts will be shared, along with findings on how mCDR research and development intersect with and may even complement other ocean interventions, such as coastal resilience. The panelists will highlight resources, reports, and frameworks that can help individuals and their communities make informed decisions about mCDR.
Speakers: Ruth Driscoll-Lovejoy (Ocean Visions), who will also be moderating the panel, Nasya Dodson (Carbon 180), and Mara Karageozian (Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes at ASU).