good afternoon everybody online and in

person thank you for attending it is

really with great honor that I get to

introduce Professor will Burns who is a

world-renowned expert and toau leader on

International environmental

law Dr Willl burs is the associate

director of of the environmental policy

and culture program at Northwestern

University as well as the founding

co-director of the institute for

responsible carbon removal at American

University and he's here today to

discuss regulatory regimes to manage

ocean-based uh geoengineering options

Wells thank you everyone uh and uh thank

you for coming and um I'll get right

into this so that we can leave some time

at the end for uh for questions and so

uh first of all just a little bit of

setting of the table about why we even

talk about these options so um as all of

you know in 2016 we established the uh

uh the came into Force at least the

Paris agreement and the Paris agreement

establishes the salutary goals of trying

to hold temperatures to quote well below

2 degrees celius and at least

aspirationally 1.5 degrees celi and the

way that a Paris seeks to effectuate

this are through pledges that are made

by the party States called nationally

determined contributions right pledges

to reduce their uh emissions or mitigate

in in various ways unfortun fortunately

if we map the pledges that countries

have made to date against what would be

necessary in terms of uh mitigating

emissions we see there's a yawning Gap

and so instead of holding temperatures

to well below 2 uh 2 degrees Celsius and

or 1.5 degrees celus uh recent Research

indicates that we're on track for

temperature increases of somewhere

between 2.7 and 3.1 degrees C by the end

of the century and beyond and what we

know

is that temperature increases of this

sort could be catastrophic both for

human institutions as well as ecosystems

and as we move uh to the higher

temperatures these uh impacts uh become

much more severe and in many ways in a l

nonlinear sort of fashion uh what we

also know is that uh these kind of

temperature increases will have

extremely serious impacts for example if

temperatures Rise by 3 degre Celsius by

the end of the century it will melt the

entire Greenland ice sheet and the loss

of that ice Mass alone will result in uh

in sea level rise of about 7 meters or

20 feet right the good news is it'll

take about a thousand years for that to

happen the bad news is we would then be

locked into that sea level rise for

about 5,000 years thereafter right one

land mass second of all uh we're

extremely worried that if temperatures

Rise by two degre celus will likely lose

all of the world's coral reefs which

provide critical sustenance for about a

fifth of all ocean-based species the

intergovernmental panel on climate

change says that if temperatures Rise by

3 to 4 degrees celsi 60% of all the

species on Earth would be potentially

threatened we'd also see substantial

declines in agricultural production

especially in some of the most

vulnerable countries increases in

disease vectors increases in violent uh

weather events

and

so as a consequence of this and the fact

that the world Community has not been

able to get its act together in terms of

reducing emissions and the so-called

Legacy emissions that reside in the

atmosphere now lock us into extremely

high temperature increases we've started

looking at other options besides simply

reducing our emissions uh and uh one of

them that we've been looking at in

Earnest are carbon dioxide removal

options or CDR and just want to start

off with a working definition right CDR

are human-based activities that seek to

remove carbon dioxide from the

atmosphere durably store it durable is a

term that's contested how long it is but

it's somewhere from 100 to 10,000 years

for most people uh in geological

terrestrial or ocean reservoirs or in uh

products okay um and and we'll talk more

about uh all of this in a moment the

other thing that we know now is not only

do we need carbon dioxide removal but we

need it at an extremely large scale

again because of our ongoing emissions

and the emissions that are already

residing in the atmosphere so according

to uh the intergovernmental panel on

climate change as well as a number of

other Studies by the middle of the the

century we are likely going to need

beyond decarbonizing the economy as much

as we can uh sequestration removal of

CO2 from the atmosphere at a level of

about 10 gigatons or 10 billion tons a

year and by the end of the century

somewhere between 15 to 20 billion tons

right um on an ongoing basis uh uh

annually now up until a couple of years

ago most of the focus for in terms of

carbon removal options were on

terrestrially based options everything

from uh trees uh as well as Direct air

capture which is a technology uh that uh

uh is very prominent here at Arizona

State uh enhanced Rock weathering

bioenergy with carbon capture and so

forth but what we've come to realize in

in recent uh years is for technological

reasons for sustainability reasons for

economic reasons uh these terrestrial

approaches are not going to be

sufficient in terms of reaching these

goals of 10 to 20 gigatons a year of

carbon sequestration and so researchers

and policy makers have increasingly

turned to the potential role of the

world's oceans in terms of of

atmospheric uh carbon removal um and

looking at the oceans makes some sense

because the oceans already perform a

yman task in terms of carbon removal

right as you can see here uh there is 50

times more carbon stored in the world's

oceans than there are in the atmosphere

and 15 to 20 times more carbon than in

all land plants and soils combined okay

so the purpose of this presentation is

to very briefly talk about what some of

those primary marine-based carbon

removal approaches are and if we are to

go down this path how we might we

potentially govern these at least

primarily at the at the international

level and that's what I'm going to uh

focus on so first of all let's talk

about the primary Marine carbon removal

approaches and for each one of these I'm

going to try to look at uh the science

behind them the potential benefits the

potential risks and the prospects uh uh

moving forward but again very uh very

quickly um so uh the first of these

approaches that we look at is ocean iron

fertilization or oif right uh the idea

of oif starts with phytoplankton right

single cell organisms in the oceans

phytoplankton of course take up carbon

dioxide in the photosynthetic process as

do landbased plants and indeed half of

all the photosynthesis that occurs on

Earth occur occurs in the world's oceans

now taking up uh CO2 from the oceans

does nothing in itself to remove CO2

from the atmosphere but the idea is is

that as the phytoplankton take up CO2

and and reduce the amount of CO2 in the

oceans it changes the pressure

differential between the at atmosphere

in the oceans and allows more

atmospheric CO2 to enter the oceans

which means there's a net draw down of

carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and

that's the the fundamental premise

behind ocean iron ocean uh base

fertilization um ocean-based

fertilization occurs in a process called

uh the ocean's biological pump and and

the idea is is that when the

phytoplankton take up the carbon dioxide

most of that carb dioxide is almost

immediately released at surface when the

when there the phytoplankton are

consumed by zup Plankton but a small

portion of that carbon dioxide stays

with phytoplankton when they die drop

below the photic or light layer and

ultimately end up in in sediments and at

this point uh it potentially for a

thousand years or more that CO2 that's

been locked up by the phytoplankton can

remain locked up uh and inaccessible

from the atmosphere facilitating uh uh

draw down from the atmosphere that's the

idea behind uh this ocean process

proponents of ocean iron fertilization

argue that there are certain areas of

the oceans U primarily in the Southern

Ocean uh that have optimal levels of of

uh macronutrients for phytol growth that

being uh primarily uh magnesium and

phosphorus but they argue that there's a

critical shortage of a micronutrient and

that micronutrient is iron and so

proponents of ocean iron fertilization

argue that if we were to seed areas such

as the Southern Ocean and some areas in

the North Pacific and the Atlantic with

iron filings it would stimulate phytol

planking growth it would essentially put

the biological pump on steroids it would

draw down ultimately far more carbon

dioxide from the atmosphere okay early

modeling and this is what we had at the

outset indic ated that this could be

potentially uh a a remarkably effective

approach uh some of that modeling

indicated that we might be able to draw

down as much as 25% of all of the CO2 in

the atmosphere and to do it for

somewhere between two to5 per ton right

but there's two questions that have to

be asked uh the first of them is is that

really true is it likely to be effective

right and this is one of the few um

ocean based approaches where we actually

have a fair amount of field-based uh

data uh in in the last decade there were

13 ocean iron fertilization experiments

where uh areas were seated with iron and

to test what what what happened right

and and the the results to put it mildly

were mixed and for the most part

disappointing right so first of all the

good news was that a lot of these

studies showed that when you seed the

world's oceans with phytoplankton indeed

you did get a proliferation of of algae

phytoplankton and and that's what we

want right because there more

phytoplankton taking up more carbon

dioxide right that was the good news the

bad news is is that in virtually all of

those studies other than one virtually

all of that carbon dioxide was lost at

surface right well essentially what

happens is is when you have a

proliferation of phytoplank you create a

gigantic sushi bar for zup Plankton

right and zup Plankton take took up most

of that phytop and uh and and you saw a

release of the CO2 and unless it sinks

below the photic or light layer uh it's

going to be it's not going to be

inaccessible and you're not going to get

carbon dra draw down right so as these

Studies have have uh been released the

estimates of what ocean iron

fertilization could do have been

steadily ratcheted down one recent study

said perhaps you could reduce

atmospheric levels of CO2 by 10% another

said 5% % uh some are in the 3 to 4%

range right proponents respond in a

couple of ways first of all they say if

it turns out only to be 10% that's still

good and makes sense that we might want

to look at that because at the end of

the day when it comes to carbon removal

at the kind of scales we're talking

about we're going to need a portfolio

approach right we're going to have to

Cobble together a bunch of landbased

approaches and ocean-based approaches

each at a you know a gigaton or more uh

levels to get to those those levels and

if and 10% maybe even 5% would be worth

doing the second thing they argue is

that we need more research we haven't

adequately characterized this approach

we haven't done it long enough perhaps

we aren't doing it in the right areas

right and so they they argue that we

need more funding in this context but uh

uh funding to date uh has not has not

really uh uh borne itself out okay so

the second question is associated with

this is are there any potential negative

ramifications of putting large amounts

of iron filings in the world's oceans

right and as you could guess the answer

is yes right and there's a couple of

things that we're primarily worried

about um one is uh what kind of

phytoplankton we ultimately get let's

pretend that this is successful and you

get a proliferation of phytoplankton the

bottom line is is that you don't get to

choose what kind of phytoplankton you

get it's not like going to Macy's

choosing a kind of sock based on the

pattern and the color that you want you

get what you get right and one of the

things that we worry about is that there

would be proliferation of phytoplankton

species that are unpalatable to The Zo

plankton in the area and then you could

potentially have a TR biological trophic

Cascade right if uh if the zup Plankton

cannot eat the phytoplankton those

populations Decline and then the species

that rely on the zoo plankton in turn

start to decline right and we have

empirical evidence that this could

happen in the Antarctic one of those

ocean iron fertilization experiments we

saw a massive proliferation of one kind

of phytoplankton called fosy Antarctica

and it out competed other phytoplankton

quickly grew in the area zup Plankton

wouldn't eat it right did not matter

because it was a very small experiment

we simply stopped right but if we were

to do this at A Basin wide scale right

uh many scientists believe we could

potentially have irreversible ecologic

impacts and so that's certainly

something that needs to be assessed far

more than it has um another thing that

we worry about in the context of ocean

iron fertilization is something called

nutrient robbing um if you look at the

Southern Ocean for example um a lot of

the nutrients the macronutrients in the

Southern Ocean ultimately drift North

into Fisheries that are extremely large

and extremely important in those areas

now what happens if all of a sudden you

have a massive increase in phytoplankton

in the Southern Ocean well they're going

to take up a lot more of those nutrients

and instead of them migrating and

they're going to rob these other areas

of those nutrients and that has a number

of implications first of all as I

mentioned before it could mess up some

incredibly important Fisheries it could

create geostrategic conflicts as a con

consequence um it also May mess up uh

any benefits you get from this right

because if there's declines in

phytoplankton in those in those other

areas as a consequence the nutrient

robbing uh you're going to see decreases

in the draw down of CO2 in those areas

um we need a lot more research about

whether nutrient robbing will occur and

at what level it will occur before we

could ever do this and of course the

last thing that we worry about with

ocean iron fertilization is urif

foration right you're trying to induce

LG blooms in this case right but it

could potentially have uh negative

impacts in terms of the ecosystems uh

perhaps less so when we're talking about

the open

uh but still uh definitely an area of of

concern okay so that really was the uh

uh was the uh uh the original mcdr

approach or marine-based CDR approach

that we focused on but we've now moved

on to look at a number of different

other approaches and so I want to uh

briefly discuss those also um one that

is receiving a lot of funding at this

point is something called ocean

alkalinity enhancement or oae so when

carbon dioxide is taken up uh in the

oceans from the atmosphere uh it reacts

with water and it forms uh carbonic acid

uh this carbonic acid in turn uh

dissociates into hydrogen ions and

bicarbonate ions and bicarbonate ions

are taken up by shell forming species

ultimately to form calcium carbonates

and when that happens it effectively

locks up that CO2 and then when those

species die again much like ocean iron

feralization and drop to the bottom of

the ocean that CO2 can be locked up in

sediments again potentially for for

thousands of years unfortunately the uh

increased carbon dioxide that's entered

the oceans in recent years as a

consequence of increased greenhouse gas

emissions have saturated this and have

slowed down that process right so the

idea of ocean alkalinity enhancement is

to add alkalinity to the oceans to speed

up this process again right and this is

the uh the chemical explanation of how

that would happen and so we've started

looking at adding things such as Olivine

tinite uh Limestone right to uh to uh

induce alkalinity and try to um uh

convert more CO2 into bicarbonates that

are ultimately stored uh in the in the

world's

oceans now there are a number of of uh

questions associated with this approach

also um one question is how effective it

would be right and the studies are all

over the place right uh some studies say

that we might at the most draw down uh

atmospheric concentrations of CO2 by

about 30 parts per million and we're at

about 420 right now other studies though

on the other end say it could be

somewhere between 160 to 450 parts per

million right um and obviously that

could have dramatically positive impacts

right in terms of climate change but

when you have error bars like that right

between 30 and 450 right it indicates

that there's a lot you don't know a lot

of methodological assumptions that still

have to be teased out right so the jury

is out in terms of the effectiveness of

this approach um we're also uh worried

about risks associated with uh with

alkalinity enhancement um one is

alkalosis right there may be certain

species and there's some uh preliminary

evidence that certain species such as uh

loral crabs may not be able to adjust to

rapidly increasing levels of alkalinity

in the oceans right so we need to

characterize what areas in the ocean we

might not want to do this we have to

characterize how quickly we do this and

at what levels of application to avoid

any of those uh potential uh negative uh

impacts also uh the addition of some of

these uh uh minerals especially things

like Olivine could also result in the

release of heavy metals things like

nickel and and and chromium right and

we're worried about those impacts in

terms of organisms now the good news is

is that some of the uh preliminary uh

field research that's been done in this

impact has indicated that the the heavy

metal levels do not reach levels that

are toxic for most organisms right but

we're at very early stages right we need

temporally these studies to be much

longer we need much larger applications

of of of alkalinity to be able to make

those determinations and ensure that

we're not uh uh messing up the uh the

world's uh uh uh ecosystems we're also

worried about biogeochemical impacts uh

one study said that uh adding one kind

of of alkalinity calcium hydroxide uh

could change the timing of phytoplankton

blooms and and and lower uh zup plankton

biomass overall right and that could

have all kinds of impacts in terms of

the uh the architecture of of uh of the

food chains in in the in the world's

oceans right so again another area for

uh research a third approach we're

looking at uh ocean upwelling and

downwelling and I'll focus on uh

upwelling because it's the one that's

discussed the most and this one's easy

to understand the idea here is to use a

process such as a a series of pumps to

pump uh uh nutrient Rich uh uh uh

materials from the bottom of the ocean

to the top of the ocean to stimulate

phytoplancton right and so again this is

uh is a is a phytoplankton fertilization

sort of project right more phytoplank

and proliferate they take up more CO2 um

number of questions associated with

artificial upwelling however um one is

how effective it would be right uh some

studies say that maybe at the most uh it

would draw down a gigaton a billion tons

of CO2 a year which might be worth it

right other studies say there would be

much less right so we need a lot more

ongoing sort of field research uh to uh

make that determination right we're also

worried about some of the risks

associated with this uh one is that it

potentially could restructure ocean

ecosystems right it could uh ultimately

by introducing uh these nutrients favor

the production of large uh phyto plankt

and such as diatoms right and it could

shift the ecosystem in ways that would

favor some species and disfavor others

that consume uh different kinds of of

phytoplancton and again another another

area of of research another thing that

we're worried about is that at the

bottom of the ocean there are a lot of

nutrients but guess what else there is

at the bottom a lot of CO2 right and so

we're worried that by ultimately

upwelling these nutrients we would

outgas massive amounts of of carbon

dioxide at surface and ultimately uh

into the atmosphere right and some of

the the preliminary modeling indicates

that that's a very real uh risk okay um

two more approaches um macroalgae

cultivation or seaweed uh farming um now

seaweeds been growing in the world's

oceans uh for uh at least 500 million

years right in natural seaweed takes up

about 170

million tons of carbon dioxide annually

so proponents of seaweed farming argue

that if we could massively increase the

cultivation of of seaweed in the oceans

they would take up huge amounts of CO2

through the photosynthetic process and

then ultimately that seaweed would drop

to the bottom of the ocean and be buried

in sediments and so one company for

example has proposed that they used

buoys that they would seed with seaweed

and that as the seaweed grew UL Ely

those buoys would become very heavy and

they would sink to the bottom of the

ocean and take all of that carbon

dioxide with them right and they've

estimated that ultimately they could

sequester between a billion and two

billion tons of carbon dioxide annually

right which again could uh could

definitely make uh uh this uh this

approach uh worth it um however there's

a lot of skepticism about whether th

those claims are true um a recent study

by the national Academy of Sciences of

of marine carbon removal indicated that

if you were to seed all of the world's

coastal areas that could be seated with

seaweed which is approximately 20% of

coastal areas that you would only get

about a third of a ton of a billion tons

of of sequestration right and we're not

really going to seed all 20% of those

coastal areas with with seaweed right

but even if you did it's it's a

relatively uh a small number okay um

that's uh that's one issue um another

issue are the risks associated with

doing this right one of the problems is

is that seaweed uh if it is growing

competes with phytoplankton for

nutrients right and so uh and competes

quite effectively with phytoplankton for

nutrients so one recent study said that

as a consequence we believe that if you

did large-scale seaweed farming you

potentially reduce the amount of

phytoplank in the world's oceans by a

fifth by 2100 and 60% by the year 3000

right and so there's two implications

there one phytoplankton are at the are

at the base of the of the food chain

right so you have all kinds of potential

ecological implications of that and

second of all to the extent that

phytoplank didn't take up large amounts

of of CO2 um that offsets a lot of the

benefit that you get in in terms of this

approach right and uh that's definitely

an area for uh for additional uh uh

research and then the last thing that

we're worried about is what are the

implication for benthic or bottom

organisms when you drop huge masses of

of seaweed biomass in those areas right

we' have to ex be very careful in

assessing uh the benthic ecosystems and

and where we could do this that would be

most propitious right and that going to

take time and and money uh research

requirements also that that haven't been

done um the last thing and then I'm

going to uh get into uh governance that

is a concern for all of these issues uh

is something very wonky called mrv

monitoring uh reporting and verification

right um if you as a country are going

to claim uh that part of the way you're

meeting your pledges under the Paris

agreement is by uh sequestering CO2 in

the world's oceans you're going to have

to quantify how much sequestration is

being effectuated if you're Microsoft

and you're buying uh uh ocean alkalinity

uh credits to apply toward your Net Zero

commitments you're going to have to

prove pretty precisely how much CO2 is

being taken out right the problem is

that is very difficult in an extremely

large open variable uh ecosystem like

the world's oceans right right take

ocean alkalinity enhancement just as a

case study if you put Olivine in a

certain part of the oceans it may be

that where that air sea flux exchange

happens right where ultimately the uh uh

the the CO2 is is reduced in the oceans

and then drawn down from the atmosphere

may occur hundreds of miles from where

you your intervention occurred it may

also occur years after you did it right

and uh may have major problems in terms

of the signal and noise ratio because

there's lots of other factors in the

ocean that simultaneously may have been

drawing down CO2 right so establishing

how much and that your intervention is

what caused that that change in airc

flux is a major challenge right and it's

going it's it's something that lots of

researchers are looking at but it they

haven't uh crack the the the the puzzle

in most people's minds and it's probably

going to be very expensive right which

will add to the costs of these processes

all right very quickly then let's decide

we're going to do this right uh we're at

least going to engage in the research

and we're going to potentially deploy

these approaches virtually all of these

approaches that we've talked about could

have positive impacts in terms of

climate but they could also have lots of

impacts in terms of the Global Commons

or other countries right and so that

necessitates International uh

regulations and to some degree consensus

about whether we should do this and so

the question is what regimes at the

international level could potentially

regulate this well to date there's been

two of them that have tried to do that

to some degree um the first was a treaty

called the London convention so the

London convention was designed uh in

1972 to address dumping of materials

into the world's oceans when we uh when

we realized how dangerous it was to dump

a lot of toxic chemicals on land times

Beach Love Canal uh we could have

started reducing the amount of toxic

chemicals we were producing but we're

humans so we didn't do that we said

where else can we dump it right and then

by the time we got to the 70s we were

like oh that's bad too right so we need

a convention to regulate what what what

what's being done well in 2008 uh the

parties to the London convention became

alarmed when ocean iron fertilization

experiments began including by

commercial Ventures right and so they

passed a resolution to try to regulate

uh ocean iron fertilization and it was a

good news bad news story if you're if

you're in that industry um the good news

is there's an exception under the London

convention that says that if you're

putting materials in the ocean for a

purpose other than mere disposal then

it's not dumping as long as it comports

with the rest of the treaty which is to

protect human health and and and and

marine life right so um the the party

said well uh if you're if you're putting

iron in the ocean you're not putting it

in the oceans to dispose of it right

you're trying to take down CO2 right so

it looks like it fall under that

exception but remember it also has to

comport with the rest of the treaty and

protect uh the the species that we're

concerned about and human health and we

know very little about the impacts of

ocean iron fertilization right so here's

what we're going to say uh you can uh

you can engage in this and it won't be

dumping as long as you do it just for

scientific research purposes in other

words you can't be selling carbon

credits to Microsoft or or to

governments uh it it can only be for

scientific research and it's subject to

risk assessment right and then in 2010

they had set up a risk assessment

framework and any of you that have had

classes and risk assessment right this

is the traditional elements of it okay

um and the Govern govern that has

jurisdiction over the operation the

University or the company uh then has to

sign off on that risk assessment that it

that it's it's uh warranted okay that's

what uh London uh said now there's real

limits to this to this uh treaty's

ability to regulate uh these approaches

first of all uh it it was restricted

ocean iron fertilization right so it

doesn't regulate ocean alkalinity

enhancement or any of the other

approaches that we talked about right

right that's uh that's uh uh limit

number one um limit number two uh to

this approach uh is that uh the

resolutions that are passed by the

parties to the London convention are not

legally binding on the parties okay now

most of the parties adhere to most of

the provisions of most of these

resolutions most of the time okay but

they don't have to right and that's

another limitation um and uh and and and

that's created uh created a lot of

trepidation about whether this was

ultimately going to be able to do

anything well fast forward um we have a

a a a successor treaty to the London

convention called the London protocol

that was established in the 1990s it's

more precautionary it's more

science-based based on what we had

learned in 20 years and the idea of the

London protocol is that once all of the

parties to the London convention ratify

this new treaty the London convention

goes away and the protoc call uh governs

all dumping operations okay uh but until

then they they operate in parallel so

the London uh protocol passed a

resolution uh that amended the treaty in

2013 to include all potential Marine

geoengineering activities right um uh

and then it required you get permits for

those activities right um and then it

established a and it limited it to

limited legitimate scientific research

and then it established a risk

assessment framework right so it looks a

lot like the resolution right that we

passed in 2008 under the London

convention but there's a couple of major

differences first of all because this is

an amendment to the treaties language it

is legally binding when it comes into

Force unlike the resolutions that they

pass right second of all um it

contemplated that all Marine

geoengineering activities could be

regulated right um it doesn't do it

initially it has an Annex called Annex 4

and any any uh uh Marine geoengineering

approach that's put in Annex 4 is then

subject to these requirements right of

legit only legitimate scientific

research and and risk assessment and the

only one that they put an Annex for

initially was ocean iron fertilization

right but they could expand it in the

future right so it's much broader in its

potential scope than the London uh 2008

resolution right and so that's what the

parties did uh but this has some real

major limitations uh too uh in terms of

the uh the parties um first of all

obviously number one uh it is uh it's

initially only focused on Ocean iron

fertilization right though of course it

could be uh uh expanded in the future to

other uh approaches second of all it

requires to come into force to be

legally binding on the parties

two-thirds of the parties to accept it

right that's roughly 37 parties there's

53 parties in in the London protocol so

you need 37 right now we have six right

so we have a long way to go before that

uh comes into Force okay third major

problem is a is a very small country uh

that would have no significance to these

approaches uh is not a party to this

treaty and that's the United States and

I'm being factious because most of the

Marine carbon removal companies and

research is happening uh with us-based

uh uh entities right us is not a party

to the London protocol we're a party to

the convention but not the protocol and

there is no way in hell we are going to

join a new treaty at least in the next

few years right so um that treaty does

not apply to us okay and that's a that's

another major uh limitation of this now

fast forward uh uh the parties to the

protocol convention have been quite

kinetic they've uh they've responded to

the fact that we're now researching

other approaches right ocean alkalinity

enhancement and upwelling and seaweed

farming and so they passed a a re

resolution in 2023 that said a couple of

things one we may have to now uh place

an Annex for other uh ocean-based

approaches other than ocean iron

fertilization and the two on the carbon

removal side that they targeted were

ocean alkal enhancement and biomass

cultivation for carbon removal right

which would be seaweed okay um and uh

and so uh that's that's one way that the

treaty purview could expand second of

all um they said that in the interim

even before they P this uh uh Amendment

comes into Force they the party should

provisionally apply it when it comes to

any Marine geoengineering approach right

so um and that can be done under the

treaty so even though it's not into

Force if you agree that'll be

provisionally applied the party should

apply it and and and so all these

Provisions would would apply okay that's

what London did um very quickly the CBD

the convention on biological diversity

in 2010 passed the resolution looks

almost identical right only you can only

do it for scientific research purposes

um you can only do it with risk

assessment limitations of the convention

on biological diversity

um are are several one its resolutions

are not legally binding on the parties

as was true at the London uh convention

second of all a very small country is

not a party to it and that's the United

States right so again this is not uh

going to be binding on any us company or

or academic uh uh entity um other uh

treaties that might apply in the future

the United Nations convention on the law

of the sea uh the law of the sea

provides for a right to conduct Marine

research right so it could in theory

privilege us to research these

approaches that we're talking about in

more detail right but it it uh uh it

also has some major uh limitations uh if

you're going to do that kind of research

in coastal areas or within 200 miles of

a a nation's Coast uh you're going to

have to let that country participate if

it wishes or establish uh regulation of

how that scientific research occurs

right which could limit what where this

this research occurs and how this

research occurs um in the open oceans uh

again article 257 says pretty much

you're supposed to uh privilege uh

Marine scientific research which would

be good uh for uh this kind of research

but it also provides that there could be

liability meaning that if you damage the

world's uh ecosystem ocean ecosystems

through research you're liable uh for

damages right to those that that uh are

potentially hurt by it right uh if you

do this at a um a a very large scale um

then ultimately you're going to be

subject to the marine pollution

provisions of the law of the sea

convention right article 194 says you

should prevent reduce and control

pollution of the marine environment from

any Source right and pollution is

defined as substances or energy which

are likely to result in delerious

effects right to Liv resources or marine

life if one were to construe for example

Olivine releasing heavy metals that

affected ocean uh organisms it could be

deemed a pollutant H and if the country

did not prevent to the greatest extent

that it could that kind of pollution uh

it could ultimately be held uh uh

responsible and liable for any damages

that occur right same thing with

nutrient robbing or any of the other

things that we talked about right and

the law of the sea convention has a

tribunal called the Tribunal for the law

of the sea that can hear cases of this

nature right so that you could see

adjudication in the future um a new

treaty that's been established under the

law of the sea convention may be

applicable in the future biodiversity

Beyond national jurisdiction this is a

new treaty that hasn't come into Force

but probably will in the next couple of

years most countries will probably join

it we won't okay but most other

countries will and it'll be applicable

to them it'll have Provisions that will

be important in my opinion for uh Marine

uh geoengineering uh one will be uh the

fact that you can establish uh Marine

protected areas and other kinds of uh

area-based uh uh protections it may be

that certain areas will be excluded from

uh from Marine CDR right and maybe other

areas are privileged for it right for

example ocean alkalinity enhancement

could also potentially help us combat

ocean uh

acidification right and if we have areas

of high acidification in those protected

areas we might actually privilege ocean

alkalin enhancement right but this will

be a treaty that may help us to sort out

some of those issues where spatially

temporally we would deploy these

approaches um it also has a uh a pretty

stringent environmental impact

assessment process uh which requires uh

that you screen uh for uh activities

that uh that potentially have have uh

large impacts and for novel approaches

especially right and to the extent that

Marine CDR is by definition a novel

approach it's likely you're going to see

environmental impact assessment

requirements and those impact assessment

requirements include report and review

to the scientific body of the BN bbnj

that also gets to weigh in as to whether

they think this should be done right

which could influence the the nature of

those projects uh moving forward uh and

then finally the Paris agreement right

obviously the climate agreement should

have some role in this and it could

right Paris in article four says parties

are to Pur pursue domestic mitigation

measures and mitigation is defined under

the parent agreement to Paris as uh

limiting emissions and enhancing syncs

sinks are things that take up CO2 right

so it's it uh it it's pretty easy to say

that the parties could as part of their

pledges their ndc's include carbon

dioxide removal in their pledges right

and Marine carbon removal may be part of

that right so it could be uh uh part of

effectuating the goals of the Paris

agreement um also uh the uh there's

language in the Paris agreement that

says that parties can be affected not

only by climate change but by the impact

of measures taken in response to it

right and so one could argue that mcdr

is a response to climate change right

and what the the uh uh Preamble says is

that uh you should uh acknowledge that

climate change is a common concern of

humankind and when you take action to

address climate change you have to

respect promote and consider obligations

on human rights right well if an

argument was made for example that it

would wreak havoc with Fisheries you

could be contributing the human right to

food you could be contributing the human

right to subsistence right and it may be

that some of the parties seek to invoke

those Provisions to limit where these

approaches are deployed which approaches

are deployed at what scale these

approaches are deployed right um hard to

know this is language in the Preamble

it's the introductory section of the

Paris agreement it's not legally binding

on the parties uh but it provides

guidance in terms of how you implement

the treaty and so it could be relevant

in the future and then last thing um

there's going to be domestic law that

regulates these things some of these

approaches are going to be deployed

primarily in coastal areas and just as

an example in the United States these

are some of the laws that potentially

would be relevant to regulating these

approaches mining laws if you're going

to mine uh W actinite or Olivine for

example to use it uh for ocean

alkalinity enhancement the mining laws

including the health regulations

environmental regulations are going to

be pertinent to these approaches

especially if you're going to do it at

that kind of scale right because it

would require huge amounts of of these

materials um the Marine protection

research and sanctuaries act regulates

the dumping of materials into US Coastal

Waters right and it implements the Paris

agreement in the United States but it

doesn't have that dumping exception it

says anytime you put something in the

ocean it's dumping right and that may

have influence as to whether companies

want to pursue it whether investors will

provide funding for something that the

government says is dumping into the

ocean right there's all kinds of things

how that law May influence things uh the

Clean Water Act uh the coastal zoning

management Act and the National

Environmental Policy Act which regulates

large scale sort of projects right and

requires risk assessment uh

environmental assessment uh would also

likely uh be pertinent in this case

right and in a lot of cases a lot of

these approaches never even contemp ated

right an approach of this sort really

they were basic pollution regimes and

now we're saying putting things in the

ocean is actually good for you right how

do pollution regimes deal with that kind

of intervention right it's going to be a

major cultural challenge for a lot of

those agencies not only in the United

States but in any other country where we

deploy these okay so I'm G stop there

and and say it's likely that as we in

continue not to get our act together in

reducing our emissions Maybe increase

them in the next couple of years given

politics um it's likely that the drum be

for carbon removal approaches is going

to get ever louder and one of the

components of that is likely to be

marine-based approaches right and I

think it's important to understand the

potential risks the potential benefits

and how we as Society might seek to

govern these moving forward thank you

very much