Accelerating Research, Development, and Demonstration for Responsible Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal – Where Are We on the Road to 2030?

The great potential for marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) to help mitigate, and ultimately reverse, dangerous climate change and meet Paris Agreement targets is increasingly recognized. Yet action lags well behind the urgent needs to answer remaining scientific questions about mCDR pathways, to build awareness among global decision makers, and to integrate carbon dioxide removal into existing and future climate mitigation commitments in an ecologically and socially responsible manner. In an effort to accelerate and coordinate progress on answering these critical questions, Ocean Visions published in 2023 A Comprehensive Program to Prove or Disprove Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal Technologies by 2030.

This session will explore where we are in the race to prove or disprove the myriad of potential mCDR approaches being advanced. In the past year, there has been a great deal of change and advance in the field. This session will highlight some of those changes, and specifically look at advances by the US federal government; views from other national governments that are exploring the field; changes and lessons from the mCDR investment arena; and a look at some of the major international policy and governance hurdles that we face.

A one-hour panel will be followed by 30 minutes of Q/A and comments. Following a fifteen-minute break, a number of mCDR start-up companies will make 3-minute presentations about their work and the key challenges they face.

Panelists: 

– Moderator: Brad Ack, CEO, Ocean Visions

– Jane Lubchenco (invited) – Deputy Director, Office of Science, Technology

– Arun Vignesh, Assistant Director for Global Partnerships, Office of the Prime Minister, Singapore

– Kristin Ellis (invited), Partner, Lowercarbon Capital

– Romany Webb, Deputy Director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, Columbia University.