Marine Scientists Call for Rules on Marine Carbon Dioxide Sequestration

An international group of leading marine scientists has launched a brief on marine carbon dioxide removal – the sequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide in the ocean.

To ensure that such methods can be applied safely and transparently in future, the group says reliable monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) systems will be essential and will need to track how much CO2 is removed, how long it is stored, and any potential environmental impacts.

This is the central message of the European Marine Board’s Future Science Brief No. 13, ‘Monitoring, Reporting and Verification for Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal’, which was published in Brussels. Thirteen researchers from an international working group contributed to the document, including Prof. Dr Andreas Oschlies, Head of the Biogeochemical Modelling Research Unit at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel.

“No marine carbon dioxide removal method currently has a sufficiently robust and comprehensive MRV system in place,” says Dr Helene Muri, a senior researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU) and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), who co-led the working group together with Dr Olivier Sulpis from CEREGE – Aix-Marseille University, CNRS, IRD. “This means that efficient and safe implementation cannot be ensured at