The White House Fast Track Action Committee on Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal paves the way

Last month, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy released a national research strategyopens in a new tab for marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR). The report comes out of an interagency effort known as the mCDR Fast Track Action Committeeopens in a new tab (FTAC) which developed a comprehensive federal research plan for marine carbon removal to scale the field responsibly, effectively, and in line with our nation’s climate goals. It was initially born out of the Ocean Climate Action Planopens in a new tab and seeks to to build sufficient knowledge on mCDR by 2030 in order to spur deployments at scale.

Earlier this year, the Carbon Removal Alliance published our marine carbon removal policy platformopens in a new tab which synthesized the perspectives of some of the country’s most credible marine carbon removal companies for the first time, including Banyu Carbonopens in a new tab, Carboniferousopens in a new tab, Ebb Carbonopens in a new tab, Equaticopens in a new tab, Planetary Technologiesopens in a new tab, and Vestaopens in a new tab. These companies are experienced  in marine science, field testing and technology development, and incorporating their insights is essential to develop catalytic mCDR policies that can meet our warming world’s pressing climate mitigation needs. We are excited to see much of our policy platform reflected in the FTAC’s report and have highlighted its core objectives along with what we consider the highest impact recommendations below.

The National Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal Research Strategy stipulated: 

• Objective 1: Promote responsible mCDR research that involves communities and minimizes environmental risk
• Objective 2: Strengthen interdisciplinary areas of research to answer key questions about mCDR safety and efficacy
• Objective 3: Advance reliable and accurate MMRV of mCDR and the sharing of research results
• Objective 4: Prioritize research towards mCDR approaches that show the greatest promise of achieving specific benchmarks for safety, efficacy, and other criteria
• Objective 5: Ensure mCDR research is efficiently and effectively permitted under applicable laws and regulations
• Objective 6: Promote coordination across diverse sectors with interests in mCDR research

Report findings: principles of high quality marine carbon removal

Before delving into these pillars, it’s worth noting that while we embrace the report’s recognition that commercial actors are key to advancing mCDR, we also wholeheartedly agree that the federal government can and should be an active participant in shaping the future of this sector. Government leadership is absolutely critical particularly in ensuring that mCDR research and development is done responsibly, safely, and in a science-driven way. The federal government has unique administrative, financing, regulatory, and coordinating capacities that we’ll need to grow this field.

The research strategy establishes the federal government’s core domestic and international position: marine carbon removal is an essential tool to help address climate change and both public and private actors have a role to play in scaling the field. It goes further — articulating pillars that define the best the field has to offer: clear scientific standards, transparent monitoring, reporting and verification, and thorough community engagement. It’s a critical document to advance the field at not a moment too soon.

We’re already seeing the ways that mCDR companies and public institutions like the National Labs are working together to answer critical research questions related to mCDR. For example, Ebb Carbon, a Carbon Removal Alliance member, has partnered with scientists at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s (PNNL)opens in a new tab campus in Sequim, Washington to research how electrochemical ocean alkalinity enhancement can remove carbon and reduce the impacts of ocean acidification on coastal communities. Equatic, also an Alliance member, received funding from DOE’s National Energy Technology Lab to partneropens in a new tab with the University of Texas at Arlington, the University of California Los Angeles, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to further develop the measurement, reporting, and verification of the electrolytic carbon removal approach.

Partnerships like this demonstrate how many marine carbon removal companies are aligned with the principles laid out in this report and are already working toward them. 

Some of those specific pillars highlighted in the report include:

• Scientific standards: The report emphasizes the importance of ensuring that mCDR technologies meet robust scientific and integrity standards, especially when involving commercial entities and voluntary carbon markets. It calls for the development of robust standards through collaboration with carbon market bodies to ensure that any mCDR credits sold represent high-quality, credible carbon removal. There are already mCDR buyers leading the way. For example, Stripe Climate, as part of Frontier’s billion-dollar advanced market commitmentopens in a new tab to accelerate carbon removal, has published their offtake agreement contracts with mCDR companiesopens in a new tab which include robust standards for science, measurement, and community engagement.
• Monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV): Carbon removal developers across the field agree: the federal government should play a key role in creating fair and effective carbon removal MRVopens in a new tab standards, protocols, coordination, and oversight. The report specifically calls out the need to reduce uncertainty and increase transparency in the field. Many private sector actors have done significant work on MRV — such as Equatic’s ISO 14064opens in a new tab, Isometric’s electrolytic seawater mineralizationopens in a new tab and ocean alkalinity enhancementopens in a new tab protocols and Ebb Carbon’s MRVopens in a new tab — and federal efforts should build on these existing methods in use by the voluntary carbon market. 
• Community engagement: Building an industry for scale always requires careful and deliberate consideration of environmental and social impacts. This is even more true when building an industry committed to remediating past harms. The committee’s strategy offers guidance for local engagement and collaborative stewardship with Indigenous peoples — some of which is already underway among operational mCDR projects todayopens in a new tab. We echo the committee’s call for more social science research into public perception and socioeconomic impacts of mCDR.

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The research strategy establishes the federal government’s core domestic and international position: marine carbon removal is an essential tool to help address climate change and both public and private actors have a role to play in scaling the field.

We believe that these principles are essential not only for developing the strongest science and technical foundation for mCDR, but also lay the groundwork for building trust with the general public and communities hosting mCDR projects. The Carbon Removal Alliance is committed to working to ensure that robust scientific standards, transparent MRV, and strong community engagement are core pillars of the emerging mCDR sector. Beyond these principles, we’ll also need a framework that recognizes the mutually-reinforcing relationship between research and commercial deployment.

Charting a path forward

Marine carbon removal is not solely an academic or commercial exercise — its outcomes are tied directly to our broader, urgent climate objectives as a nation. The goal of any mCDR research agenda must be to ensure that mCDR methods shown to be safe and effective are quickly turned into real-world applications at a scale capable of meaningfully addressing climate change. We can’t wait until OCAP’s 2030 research target to start thinking about deployment. To do so would ignore robustopens in a new tab opens in a new tabliteratureopens in a new tab on the non-linear, symbiotic relationship between research, commercialization, and innovation. Within existing commercially-backed mCDR projects today, data is already being collected on efficacy, additionality, permanence, and ecosystem response. This data collection is happening through partnerships with private companies, governmentopens in a new tab and academic institutionsopens in a new tab and helps answer many of the research questionsopens in a new tab raised in the report and support federal policymakers shepherding the future of mCDR. 

The FTAC report creates a blueprint for future administrations and provides a strong market signal to potential investors that marine carbon removal is an area of technology worth backing. Congress should build on the momentum of this report and allocate more funding to mCDR research, demonstration, deployments, and associated workforce development, and the administration should ensure that mCDR is considered as part of a portfolio of promising technologies in all carbon removal policies. 

Beyond the domestic context, we hope to see USG represent the views articulated in this report about private sector participation in mCDR in international negotiations, including with the International Maritime Organization.

To reach gigaton scale of carbon dioxide removal by 2050 and meet our climate goals, the vast potential of mCDR needs to be tapped in ways shown to be safe, responsible, and effective. By centering principles of high-quality mCDR like scientific standards, MRV, and community engagement that includes the credited demonstrations and  learnings provided by the private sector, we can set the nation on a path toward global leadership on climate change mitigation and innovation.

Photo Attribution: An employee at Carbon Removal Alliance member company — Ebb Carbon — reviews marine carbon removal data