CO₂-removal News

Podcasts

Can oceans save us Part II: The tricky science of ocean carbon capture

w/ John Barry Gallagher, Mowgli Holme & Greg Rau hosted by Wil Burns & James Lawler on climatenow.com (23 min)

„Climate Now produced a special three-part podcast series that explores a novel suite of technologies, termed Ocean CDR, that aims to speed up Earth’s natural GHG regulator by enhancing the biogeochemical processes already happening in the oceans. In this second installment of the three-part series, the moderators apply a healthy dose of skepticism to these developing ocean CDR technologies. They ask, how the impacts of ocean CDR can effectively be monitored, if it can be done at all, and who should be doing it.“

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Podcasts

Can oceans save us? Part III: The laws of the sea

w/ Romany Webb & James Lindsay hosted by Wil Burns & James Lawler on climatenow.com (25 min)

„In this final installment of the deep dive into the potential and risks of ocean carbon dioxide removal (CDR) techniques, the moderators consider how this nascent industry should be monitored and regulated. The moderators will take a look at the existing international legal frameworks relevant to ocean CDR – how they originated, how they apply, who is responsible for enforcing them, and what oversight needs to be put in place before these technologies start to scale up.“

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Political Papers

Vibbert & Park (2022): Harvesting, storing, and converting carbon from the ocean to create a new carbon economy: Challenges and opportunities

Hunter B. Vibbert & Ah-Hyung Alissa Park IN: Front. Energy Res., Sec. Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage, https://doi.org/10.3389/fenrg.2022.999307

In this perspective article, the authors discuss alkalinity enhancement and biologically inspired CO2 hydration reactions that can shift the equilibrium of ocean water to pump more carbon into this natural sink. Further, they highlight recent work that can harvest and convert CO2 captured by the ocean into chemicals, fuels, and materials using renewable energy such as off-shore wind.

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Media

U.S. Department of Energy Announces $30 Million to Remove Carbon Dioxide from the Air and Oceans and Convert it to Valuable Products

on energy.gov

„The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) announced today up to $30 million in funding for research and development (R&D) projects to advance carbon dioxide removal (CDR) approaches that will reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution by capturing it directly from both the atmosphere and oceans and converting it into valuable products such as fuels and chemicals. Direct air and ocean capture of CO2, with permanent storage of the captured CO2 in geological formations or converted to value-added products, has a critical role in helping the United States achieve the Biden-Harris Administration’s goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.“

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Media

Here are the climate policies Microsoft will advocate for

by Brian Kahn, Qualcomm on protocol.com

„The company published two briefs — one on carbon and one on electricity — that include specific types of policies it will support in the U.S. and around the world. The briefs will offer a measuring stick to determine if Microsoft is living up to its ideals.[…] Microsoft laid out the need to pull 10 billion tons of carbon from the sky per year.“

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Calls

Biennial Ocean Visions Summit & Call for abstracts

April 4-6, 2023, at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta or online

„Summit participants will share and discuss cutting-edge advancements in ocean sciences, engineering, policy, governance, and economics that support trajectory-changing solutions to the dangerous climate impacts on the ocean within 7-10 years.“

Ocean Vision is currently soliciting abstracts. Abstracts should focus on existing and emerging problems at the intersection of the ocean and climate crises, and current and potential solutions that can be effectively implemented – as well as anticipating newer problems as these crises intensify. Abstracts should fall within one or more of the five program tracks:

  • Ocean-Based Contributions to Global Decarbonization
  • Ocean-Based Contributions to Carbon Dioxide Removal
  • Ocean Ecosystem Regeneration
  • Human Adaptation to a Changing Ocean
  • Building a Global Community of Solvers at the Ocean-Climate Nexus

The deadline for submitting abstracts is October 26, 2022. The full meeting program and schedule will be published in early February.

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Media

New mapping tool to support the search for high-quality nature-based carbon credits

by National University of Singapore on Phys.org

An interactive mapping software that will support the prospecting, development and management of nature-based carbon credit projects worldwide was launched on Sept. 22 at the World Economic Forum—Champions for Nature event in New York during Climate Week NYC 2022. The open-access platform (http://carbonprospecting.org), dubbed the Carbon Prospecting Dashboard, was jointly developed by the Center for Nature-based Climate Solutions (CNCS), a research center under the National University of Singapore (NUS) Faculty of Science, and ST Engineering’s satellite data and geospatial analytics business, ST Engineering Geo-Insights.

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Political Papers

Fraser (2022): Up in the air: the challenge of conceptualizing and crafting a post-carbon planetary politics to confront climate change

Alistair Fraser IN: The Journal of Peasant Studies, DOI: 10.1080/03066150.2022.2113779

The author argues that confronting climate change requires conceptualizing and crafting a post-carbon planetary politics focused on removing carbon from the atmosphere. A focal point for beginning to build this politics should be carbon removal networks. The author conceptualizes these networks as vehicles that tap diverse knowledge domains (from sciences such as ecology or chemistry to activism and the law) to establish a planetary-wide political alliance which removes carbon while delivering nutrition, shelter, and care to populations in all manner of geographical settings.

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New Publications

Science-Rohatyn et al. (2022): Limited climate change mitigation potential through forestation of the vast dryland regions

Shani Rohatyn, Dan Yakir, Eyal Rotenberg, Yohay Carmel IN: Science Vol 377, Issue 6613, pp. 1436-1439, DOI: 10.1126/science.abm9684

Actual climatic benefits of forestation are uncertain because the forests’ reduced albedo can produce large warming effects. Using high-resolution spatial analysis of global drylands, the authors found 448 million hectares suitable for afforestation. This area’s carbon sequestration potential until 2100 is 32.3 billion tons of carbon (Gt C), but 22.6 Gt C of that is required to balance albedo effects.

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