Day 4 - Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal Standing Committee: Meeting 2

Everyone back to the this is the fourth and final day of this meeting series for the Nationalmies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine's marine carbon dioxide removal standing committee. My name is Kelly Oskig. I'm a senior program officer with the Nationalmies um in here in DC Washington DC and I'm serving as the staff lead uh for this activity. So please note that this is a public meeting um it's being recorded and the recording will be posted on our website in a few days time. Um, and if you're joining us for the first time, uh, you can find out more information about this project on our website, um, which Safa will put in the chat momentarily. Um, and you can also view the recording from our first meeting for additional project details. Um, we'll put the direct link to that, uh, in here as well. So, um, next slide. We've had a handful of extremely informative, um, uh, meetings this week. So starting with some of the framing, we had um some talks on the ocean's role in climate mitigation. Um a discussion on where we are with monitoring, reporting and verification of carbon removal. Um and a series of lightning talks on recent advances across many different approaches in MCDR. Um we then delved into discussions on governance um including policy, permitting and social perceptions. Um yesterday we learned a little bit more about some of the recent field trials um happening and what specifically has been learned in terms of um successful development and execution of those field trials. And then today we'll close this series of meetings with a discussion on current efforts, challenges and future plans for MCDR happening around the world. Um and we also have a pre-recorded uh lightning talk from Peter McCriedy on what's new in the world of um coastal blue carbon. As I said, we've had a very uh busy agenda and we couldn't squeeze it in on the first day. Um so please stay tuned for that. Uh next slide. So today we're very pleased to have Helen Finley, um Nanju Xiao, and Chris Pierce online. Um each will provide 10 minutes of an overview. This will be followed by questions and answers um after all three have spoken. Uh we'll use the raised hand function to ask questions, but also feel free to use the Zoom chat to ask questions, answer questions, or send comments. Um around 1:10 p.m. Eastern, we'll wrap this up and then show a pre-recorded talk from Phil Boyd with the University of Tasmania to finish up this session on global efforts and that'll be followed by a fivem minute pre-recording from Peter McCriedy on coastal blue carbon. Um since they aren't able to be here, the committee will then follow up with any questions via email. Um so without further ado um Helen um you are first thanks for joining us. >> Thank you for having me. I'll just um share my slides. Uh yeah it's a real pleasure to be invited to come and speak to you today. So thank you very much for that. Um hopefully you can see my presentation. Okay. >> Let's let's go. >> Great. Thank you. Yeah. So, my name is Helen Finley. I'm from Plymouth Marine Laboratory over in the UK. Um, and I'm here to speak to you primarily based uh around the global oceanication observing network perspectives paper that we recently published. In fact, it just came out last week um in oceanography. um because I am the chair for the marine carbon dioxide removal working group of Goan. Um and we felt that it was uh a useful opportunity to uh contribute our knowledge um and think about where ocean acidification research can feed into MCDR. So I'm going to give you a little bit of introduction to that and some of the other work actually that we're involved with outside of Goan as well. Um, so for those that are not aware, Goan is a global network that has been working since 2012. We now have over 1,200 members in our network um, from over 114 different countries. Um, and we work as a global network, but we actually have regional hubs now as well. So there are 11 regional hubs that mean that we can operate um globally and sharing that knowledge but actually answer regional questions and look at regional issues that are maybe different between different locations um and come together as those regional hubs to kind of answer those specific questions. So the MCDR working group was formed um two years ago now uh we've been active and it was really in the um as MCDR space was kind of growing we thought that the oceanification community needed some way of connecting and feeding into that discussion as it moved forward. Um so the goan has three working groups the biology working group the MCDR working group and a capacity uh building sharing working group. So we aim to really kind of think about how we can standardize carbonate parameters, thinking about data quality, best practices, guidelines, data analysis, these sort of big questions that are actually really useful for MCDR as well and thinking about how we can apply that and share that with the wider MCDR community. And actually I have to say a lot of the MCDR community and certainly in the research field is is primarily actually based um from built up from the community that's either been working on carbon cycling or oceanification over the last couple of decades anyway as I'm sure you're familiar with. Um so it's a really nice way of just being able to showcase that knowledge and information. Um so this I won't go into too much detail about the paper itself. Um other than just raise a couple of comments. We don't really have time to go into detail. Um what we tried to do with the paper was to provide uh go through each of the goals of go on um which I'll do briefly here and think about how we can learn from what we know from the past two decades worth of research in this field and apply that to MCDR for recommendations for how perhaps we can move forward in in that space. So the first goal is goal one was to um is is to be able to observe um changing carbonate chemistry specifically for ocean edification but actually obviously that has multiple uses um for a carbon cycle generally but also then thinking about MCDR in that space. So some of the recommendations we came out with were things like making use of already um available data and this is just an example here. There's the map here on the top on the uh right which is the data explorer that go has on its website. Um and you can go in there and explore where people are taking measurements um and what measurements they're making, how they're making them, how frequently, things like that. And comparing that to something like the geoengineering map, which is a map that's shows where different activities are taking place. And actually even just that first step of thinking about where those different processes, different activities are happening is really useful to kind of understand are we monitoring in the right places. Have we got that background data? Is that useful for monitoring, verification, reporting? Is it useful for that kind of background information that I need when I think about MCDR moving forward? Is that data already available? So acknowledging that those sort of data sets already exist. Um, and there's a wide, it's not just the ocean inflation community. There's a huge carbon community out there that has been gathering these data. But also acknowledging that achieving this kind of highquality data is actually quite difficult and um requires highly skilled practitioners which we need to invest in and make sure that we are um able to continue to invest in sustainable lowcost accessible tools as well as human resources to continue that sort of monitoring. So those are the sort of things for goal one that we were thinking about. For goal two, this is about biological and ecosystem societal impacts from oceanistification and changing carbonate chemistry. So there's a lot of information there about things like how which species are probably going to be most sensitive to changes in chemistry. Um which are the vulnerable species? Are there thresholds that we can already establish from that oceanification knowledge? um and how can we kind of make use of that for environmental impact assessments um and societal acceptance of some of these techniques and technologies. Are there um biological indicators that we can develop together for example with the oceansification and MCDR applications both in mind um and encouraging kind of chemists and biologists to look at where they can colllocate those measurements to actually think about um how best to look at environmental impact assessments moving forward. Goal three was about is about um data collection for modeling and forecasting. And so these were the sort of recommendations really that feed a lot into the monitoring, verification and reporting for MCDR. So thinking about how can we make use of the models that already been developed for carbonate chemistry um in in the oceanification world. There's a lot of work been done in trying to better understand how carbonate chemistry changes in models and how we can better represent those. But there's also um a lot of data visualization that's been uh recently taken place in the in the oceanication space. For example, there's there's tools now that make use of artificial intelligence to map uh carbonate chemistry through ch time across the whole global scale. We can use satellites to kind of implement some of those algorithms. Um, and we can actually kind of start to think about uh monthly if not higher resolution data sets that are available to better understand uh and model and forecast the changing carbonic chemistry. Um, so those kind of all feed into MCDR in different ways and you can explore that more in the paper. Um, it is a network and so we do do capacity building as well. So I think we also wanted to make sure that we highlighted that capacity building was really important um and leveraging the existing networks that are available. Um just to say that we have ocean acification week every year. Um the next one is coming up the week of the 13th of October and there will be an MCDR session on that and we will have someone representing our paper on that as well. I just wanted to move briefly on to some ICES related efforts to talking about other global initiatives that are ongoing and I know that we've got the once program after this which started I believe was as maybe as an IC's Pisces working group um so that' be really interesting to hear from next um but we have been working together with a number of people that are kind of bridging the go on um space with with some nonmcdr go on uh communities to try and actually think about how MCDR interacts with fish, fisheries, and agriculture. This was something that we recognized hadn't really been dealt with very much um in this in this space yet. So, we held a workshop last September um and then an inerson writer workshop in April 2025. And this is really um to kind of bring to the table uh practitioners from other communities that maybe aren't well uh have a have a voice yet in this space. Um because actually when you look at the environmental impacts um a lot of those are going to go beyond kind of the plankton experiments that have been already done and there's not really much on in terms of higher trophic levels but actually also thinking about holistic ecosystem management. um of systems requires input from all of these different types of um ecosystem, fisheries, agriculture type of communities as well. So we have a themed set u with ICE which is open at the moment and will close in the in February. And these lists here I won't again I won't go through them all um but I think these slides are available afterwards. So um these 11 papers are in um preparation at the moment. So they range from everything kind of the state of the knowledge in terms of impacts to Munich systems, fisheries and agriculture through to kind of addressing uh rights holders and indigenous engagement through to um blue carbon and MCDR interactions, policy um lessons learned from other um different industry activities in this space um and explainers for policy makers in the public. So look out for those over the next six months or um 6 to 9 months of hopefully will be coming out in that period. Uh we recently submitted our project for a UN ocean decade endorsement and we're hoping to become a formal ISIS working group in January um and potentially looking to expand that to Pisces as well depending on how we get on in the Atlantic space first of all. So I realize I'm running out of time. So I just really wanted to finish by saying that um some of the challenges thinking with the the go on um hat on um is things like funding I think would be really useful to have kind of international coordinated funding. So it's very it's great that there's national funding especially the kind of the US Europe um UK uh for certain aspects of MCDR but I think with given that the space we're moving into is going to require international regulations and international partners it would be great to see some international coordinated funding available regulations I'm sure you've heard lots about this week so I won't really talk too much about that but I think the other challenging thing from our perspective especially when we've been commun communicating this type of information to nonmcdr practitioners um is really about trying to understand scale of deployment um and I think that is a really important thing for the MCDR research community to try and start to embrace a bit more I know people are working on it and we've come a long way with that but what does that really look like is it like a national pot that you can kind of pull like I'm going to do some um direct ocean capture here and I'm going to do some OA here in my national space um for your national determined contributions. Can you include some of those? How does that really look for those policy makers for people that are actually deciding um how they're going to manage that space nationally? But then also we're going to think about international uh large scale deployment. If we if we're talking about really large scale stuff, then it's going to be happening in the high seas and we need to be looking at what actually understanding where those different deployment activities are going to take place and how they're going to take place so that we can then apply this holistic ecosystem based um monitoring and and planning aspects to it. And that kind of then leads to this final point that we need to better understand the implications. But really beyond just kind of the impacts to plankton or a specific species, what are the implications to to ecosystems and societies that are in um that are working in this space? So I'm going to end there. Thank you very much. Look forward to having a discussion about this after the presentations. Thank you. >> Excellent. Thank you so much, Helen. And um those those papers sound like they'll be a really valuable resource to the committee. So we look forward to seeing those in six to nine months. Um so next we have Nanju. >> Okay. I will share my screen. Okay. Can you see my screen? >> Um >> can you hear me? >> Yes. It's >> okay. Great. >> We can hear you. It's not in presentation mode yet. >> Okay. Yeah. Let me uh >> Okay. >> Okay. Hello everyone. I'm very u much honored to uh to be speaking here. Uh I'm going to introduce a little bit about the UN international program called ocean negative carbon emissions or wise in short. Uh the term negative emission is actually a opposite word of emission. That means when the current flux of negative emission equals the the current flux of emission we going to reach current neutral and uh this program I mean wise program uh was designed toward the UNDG's number 13 number 14s and 17s and we have five missions including innovative research construction of infrastructure structures and facilities and on-site demonstration and also international exchange like this and education the science popularization um I can't hear you right Now >> lo lost video also. >> Um Andrew if you can hear us we can't hear you or see your screen anymore. Um, we might have to >> Would you me to >> circle back? Yeah. Chris, do you want to go ahead and go and then hopefully um he can get back logged back in. >> Sure. >> Thank you. >> Can you hear me now? >> Are you back, Mandrew? Okay. >> Yes, we can hear you. >> Okay. Can um I don't >> So can I continue? >> Yes, you just need to reshare your slides. >> Okay. From the beginning or where I stopped? >> No. Um >> maybe from here >> a few slides in. >> I mean before coming punks >> is it here? It was here. >> Um I don't I don't see your screen yet. >> Oh really? Let me um share screen again. This is the ter. Okay. >> Okay. >> It's okay. These things happen. >> Sorry about that. >> No worries. >> It's not okay. >> Um, yeah, I see I see your screen. Um, and I think you can start with >> Yeah, that's perfect. >> Yeah, let me start from here from the theory and the current situation mechanisms. I mean the the wise approach is based on their combined carbon pumps including biological current pump or BCP in short and current counterpro MCP and ultimately also solability current pump FCP. Um let me block. Okay. So uh among those current pumps the MCP is a relatively new one. It's really different from the other three pumps. It's not really depending on the depth. It can taking place anywhere any depth in the water column. And they got a fundamental differences from the classical biological compound in terms of carbon sitration mechanism carbon storage process and the dominant organisms and also climate effects as well as a historical contributions. I don't have time to go through the details but if anyone are interested in this uh point we can uh talk after the the the meeting and uh the MCP entry existing not only in marine environments but also uh on the terrestrial environments. uh actually the terrestial scientists work out their soil MCP and it get published after five years uh five years after we propose the MCP in the ocean and if you look at the citation of the soil MCP here you are find the the trend of the citation rate is much sharper than the MCP in the ocean so that means MCP is really existing everywhere. And now we we are trying to get the soil MCP and the MCP in the ocean uh integrated for better understanding of the current cycling and the current substitution in the in the environments and we believe there on the in the marine side there are interactions and synergistic effects of the all the compounds like this here. And if we understand their process and mechanisms and if we can harness or control the boundary conditions we could reach maximum outputs of carbon substitution in the form of organic inorganic uh living non-living dissolve and particular forms. So like this you may ask me do you have any evidence? The answer is yes. You can look at the the black rocks. If if you take a piece of the rocks and look at it under microscopy, you will find these blacks was actually induced by the microbes. And you can also test it out in the lab under the microscopy. You can see these these rocks are induced by the microbial cells. And this way you could control something some condition boundary conditions to turn the carbon as a counter pump to be a positive one. I mean release less CO2 while they get precipitation or carbonates. Then uh let me show you the integrated advanced approaches for potential based practice. Uh case number one um we can call it uh integrated land and ocean uh eco engineering uh by u reduce fertilization of the land to increase carbon situation in the ocean. Uh I don't have time to go through the details but let me show you the approach first. This is the approach number one. uh number two series farming this is easy to be understood so I don't to time but I would like to show you some other eco engineering like artificial proving driven by clean energy like this here wheel energy and also solar energy wind energy etc and in the uh this can be applied I mean the artificial can be applied in the uh sea farming area which is already intervented area. So that's uh legal and um this diagram show you the BCM's approaches like here started from the apple bring high nutrients from the deep water to the surface water and then it can expect higher carbon fixation and the carbon fixation and then followed by the BCP and also MCP because there lots of dissolve on carbon from the series in that And which can also be a small nuclei for aggregation of the other molecules. And if you are worried about the therofication because of the upper wedding um we do have some measures like the hydroxal radical. It can kill the cells. I mean break down their DNA but leave the cells intact. So then there's no much pollution but you can get the cells to be aggregated for sinking down to the bottom for burial. And if you want to speed up this process you could also apply clay or uh unclean minerals like olive and that can also make the the carbon counterpro to be a positive one. All these processes were enhanced the total amount of carbon secret by the processes uh then down the the farming area. So it's it's legal and this is really can reach twin goals I mean enhancement of current sync and also remediation of the cities. This is a kind of a good example for application of the BCMS and uh BCMS also stand for business continuity management systems. Now this is then you can see it's a smart approach and smart also can be the the initials of these words specific manable achievable realistic and transparent. So this really can be a potential best practice and also uh we could apply the MCP and also CCP in the wastewater treatment plants. We know the wastewater treatment plants are all sources of CO2 and we could turn it upside down. I mean to make it from a source to a sink of CO2 and meanwhile it can make uh I mean carbon sink for carbon trading because this is by anthropogenic process. Uh this is not a nitro. so that I can put on the the the current trading market. So this is a good idea and the the test the preliminary test to show us it's really working and u during this proc this test we also proposed some uh proposal for change the current policy I mean the current standards in waste water uh influence uh is better the pH value. I mean the current standard for the lower limit of a pH in the effluence is a six which is much below the pH value of the seaw water which is still uh above eight even we call it uh ocean acidification. So you can imagine by the two units difference it can cause a a really really big difference in terms of the hydrogen iron concentration just about 150 times difference. You can imagine the how much the impact of this difference on a biota. So we need to change the the policy change the standard of PH in the influence of TR resource treatment plants. So that's was proposed to the FTI uh at the UN STI forum two months ago and it was published as a polic brief already. Now this way we can really um link science to policy and make policy work for science and then promote science service the society and we already got approved by the ISU for uh uh international uh working group for w and carbon neutralization. ISU means international standardization organization. So this is the good plan for for people to uh work out some international standard. So then we develop the theory to method to protocols and to standard I mean international standard then people can follow your protocol to work everywhere possible in the world. Finally, I would like to share uh with you uh about a once widget which is called triple real. Uh the real works four letters here I can show you. Triple R means triple R for wise approaches. That means the approaches that are realistic, reliable and reproducible. Triple E for implementation. Uh ecological ethic and with equity. Triple A for W's objectives ambitious actionable and achievable and triple L for W's governness legal by learning protocol and with liability. Okay, with this I would uh stop here. Thank you very much for your attention. >> Thank you so much. that that was a lot to squeeze into 10 minutes and a lot of great work. Um we really appreciate you sharing that and I imagine that just stirred a um some great discussion to follow. But before we get there, um we've got Chris Pierce. >> Um and then we'll open it up for for Q&A. Chris, the floor is yours. >> Fantastic. Okay. Hopefully we're in full screen mo mode. >> Yes. >> Yep. Okay. Good. Okay. Well, thank you ever so much for the invitation to join you today. Um, I'm delighted to be here to present our some of the work we've been doing uh both through the CO2 CDR project as as per the early introduction, but also more broadly work that we're doing at the NCO um in in the UK. Uh I think kind of the UK is perhaps most famous for the marine CDR trial that never happened. Uh this was the initial uh proposed trial led by Planetary in in Cornwall. um that didn't proceed not for scientific reasons. The the resulting report did highlight that it was actually scientifically sound. There were there's no problems with what was being proposed to be done, but it was actually more about the level of community engagement that happened or didn't happen in advance of that trial. It's given us a lot of lessons learned for the sector in general and is continued to be followed up on. So, it's definitely not a a less learned or wasted effort. It's certainly still uh giving us guidance on how to proceed. The UK does also have a active project or a trial that's giving us information around direct ocean carbon capture and storage or direct ocean removal. This is a secure project led by uh the University of Exit Paul Heleran as well as colleagues at PML. Um and that is the only UK government supported or funded project that has been happening in this space uh at this current time. So there's a couple of activities that we've been doing, not so much perhaps as elsewhere in the world, but we are starting to show interest and this is sort of demonstrating there's a real need for further research and guidance for that the regulatory uh implementation of these activities. In that regard, the NOC is not there to innovate or apply these approaches. We are very much on the side of evaluating assessing what their impacts could be, what their efficacy could be, whether they are considered viable in terms of supporting the UK's net zero strategies and helping to uh remove atmospheric carbon dioxide removal and also uh facilitating the exchange of information regarding that. So essentially making sure that uh policy makers, member of the public, uh IPCC boards and and representatives have the information that they need to evaluate if or how and where and when uh marine CDR could be used to support climate mitigation strategies. U I'm not going to go into detail about all the types of activities we've been doing. Uh I am going to sort of highlight in the interest of time some of the the key projects that we've been working on and are contributing to. uh starting with the CO2 CDR program. So that is the strategies for the evaluation and assessment of oceanbased CDR. It's a Horizon Europe funded project uh that's uh scientifically led by myself and the NOC and involves uh 14 different partners across the the EU. Our aim very much aligned with that of Nox unsurprisingly is to evaluate and assess uh CDR approaches to really help understand if or where they might be environmentally uh safe or economically viable and socially acceptable. So we're not there to um innovate or advocate for any approaches or conversely not to try and say they shouldn't be proceeding. It's all about getting the understanding and bringing together the different communities who are working in this space to understand where and how and if marine CDR could be part of that uh portfolio. We're doing that through three core themes. uh theme one shown there on the green is really the sort of scientific and technical side of things uh with Phil Renfor and colleagues and and Leiden looking at the life cycle assessment and technoeconomics assessments and I'll talk about that briefly in a second and so with and colleagues at no looking more at the MRV monitoring reporting verification challenges together with and shies and colleagues at GMR on the governance side we have array of institutes including IFW and KE um a case in Poland and Lewis in Italy as well as the World Ocean Council supporting our understanding of uh different governance frameworks, approaches, uh what public perceptions are towards those and as well as the potential um industrial needs in that sector, the market needs. And finally, uh in our third core theme, which is the integration pathways is very much about what what is needed to take this to scale. What the kind of implementation logistics required uh how do we represent marine CDR in integrated assessment models? Can we do that and how do we sort of support that advancements and how do we sort of just take this sector forward in a in a viable manner and that's work being led through um IDV and in Germany and KE as well as um colleagues in in Madrid as well. Apologies to anyone I've forgotten. Uh in in terms of uh work we've been doing through this project so far as I kind of mentioned uh we've been doing techno the royal we Phil and his colleagues um Callum Ward as well as those in Leiden have been looking at technoeconomic assessment analysis really developing conceptual structures building on other work they've been doing with carbon to see sort of unifying the approaches for evaluating uh the requirements for marine CDR and looking at improving the sort of the net zero the CDR requirements energy requirements and enhancing understanding if and where this could be implemented and what the requirements were would be for doing this at scale down the line. In terms of the governance requirements, we have these uh uh communities of practice that are being established. Uh something you may have heard of recently is the carbon business council's marine CDR coalition that's actually sort of come about through combining the the industry association established by the world ocean council through the cootc project. So it's a great success to see there's a a unified portal for us uh particularly as an academic sector to try and contact and understand what the shared needs are of the commercial implementers of marine CDR technologies truly trying to understand what they see as their barrier to implementation what they're doing to uh tackle them and how we as a scientific community can ensure that they and the regulatory bodies and markets have the information needed to evaluate if or what is needed to take this up forwards and from the implementation side just an example work that's recently come out from uh Frank Misel and his his colleagues in in Ke um this is looking at the logistical requirements for in this instance um at sea ocean alkalinity enhancement off the coast of Norway so really kind of looking at the shipping rates the rates considering ocean or the rates of deployment how fast the ships need to move uh how how much of an area they can disperse the material over to maintain the sort of pH threshold limits uh so the kind of really sort of going into some of the scientific technicalities as well as the logistical material fuel energy usage and shipments to really enhance our understanding of how much of a uh component this could could play in reducing CO2. Where we want to get with this work is to really kind of improve our understanding and availability of mechanisms and guidelines required to evaluate marine CDR. uh there are obviously a lot of frameworks already existing out there and we are trying to support them and but not by duplicating efforts by really sort of trying to bring them together to give us a sense of what the different evaluation criteria are. Unsurprisingly this aligns with our core themes with some of the time scientific and technological aspects uh the governance aspects and implementation pathways as well as market considerations. Um we're not trying to do our own field trials or understand our advancement of efficacy and durability. you know, many colleagues on this call and others throughout the field are are doing that excellent work. Really, we're trying to say this is what's needed, bring the different people together and really ensure that we have a clear understanding of of how to progress it forwards in in the most successful manner because because we have to recognize that time is limited to to get uh carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere in the most viable approaches. And that's kind of highlighted in this s of ultimate goal at the bottom. And the sort of key takeaway I think has already been highlighted by by Helen earlier is that uh communication and and open collaboration is going to be essential for using the time and the resources and the trials activities that we already have going ensuring that the scientific commercial regulatory sectors all working together to make this sector work. Moving on briefly to some of the other projects that we're doing at the NOC. Um starting with Atlantis. Um this is uh a the one of the UK's national capability program. So it's a sort of a nationally funded uh marine science capability program. Uh one of the research teams within it and there are multiple components to this. So this is only one small sector is looking at uh oceanbased climate mitigation strategies and uh this is uh split into various different components. uh sort of summarized graphically. On the right hand side, we have um sustained observ observatories uh sustained observatories, sorry, such as the the porcupine abyssal plane where we have these long-term records and we want to better understand how we can use them to provide baselines against which any future implementation uh could be uh assessed against very much along the lines of uh the observation networks that go on that Helen was referring to earlier. And we're also looking at models and uh where we can applying our technologies to existing field trials or analog sites to improve our understanding of our capabilities to monitor, report and verify um future interventions in this space. Uh in addition to that again we we're developing and enhancing our sensor capabilities. This will require integration of insitu sensors with the marine citizen models. We we're aware of that. So what platforms do we have that will work in that space? And of course a critical component of our work is ensuring that the information we have is is getting through to national and international bodies. So we uh support the UK's national climate science partnership. Both myself and and Helen actually are a part of the climate interventions working group um supporting these types of assessments and colleagues sit on the European Marine Board's um MCDR working group. So very much a part of those uh national and European based discussions. Another project I want to briefly highlight is the Ocean Visions uh funded um uh MCDI environmental impact assessment framework. This is a new project started a couple of months ago. So there's not too much data or highlights to to show. I just want to highlight that this is being led by Fugrow and Integral Consultings. We're not supporting that. is very much a going to be a community-led effort with Fugrow currently bringing their expertise uh from the wider marine sector in doing environmental impact assessments for other marine based uh applications and then translating that knowledge and expertise into the marine CDR space so we can have this uh cohesive uh open and comprehensive framework for uh environmental impact assessments in the MCDR space. um at present that that knowledge has been collected and and being transferred into the the marine CDR space and then that will be shared in the new year uh for wider evaluation and engagement. Um so please do sign up to the mailing list as a QR code and I'll flag that back up at the end if you want to engage with that process or want further information about it. Uh and we will be running a town hall on EIA's um for marine CDR at the forthcoming um uh AGU meeting in in Glasgow next year. So again so something to watch this space for. Another project that is in the pipeline I would say we start started some work with the University of the West Indies in Barbados and and sea fields looking at the impacts of macro algae uh or seaweed deposition. This is a big issue in the Caribbean as well as the west coast of Africa and across the a tropical north Atlantic as well as elsewhere. As Yandrein was just proposing or highlighting, seaweeds can be used, cultivated, and deposited as a potential biological MCDR approach. Um, particularly in the Caribbean where there's these huge inundations as shown in the the photo on the top left there. You know, this can be a hazard, uh, human health hazard. It needs to be disposed of. So, we need to evaluate if deep sea deposition could be part of that solution. We know that degradation will occur. We just don't know the rates, uh, particularly in the deep marine environments and what the impacts of enhanced deposition would be. So this is something we need to evaluate. We've done some preliminary work um with the crews with colleagues uh from from Sea Fields and University of the West Indies. Um so we need to take this further with some very small scale trials I think just to really better understand the rates of degradation and what the impacts would be on on local oxygen consumption and so forth. So this is work we've proposed to do with University of Cambridge and the Scottish Association of Marine Science and the University of Southampton. So hopefully that's something we can take further forward in in the near future. uh probably rapidly running out of time. So I just want to highlight a couple other projects because uh NOC is not alone in working in this space and the CO2 CDR is not the only European marine CDR project. So we do have a sister project uptake that's also considering um marine CDR approaches certainly ocean accent enhancement and uh rescue is another EU horizon Europe funed project that's looking at uh running marine CDR model in comparison exercises. So that's two two big uh active projects funded by Horizon Europe and of course ocean nets recently um finished and uh that was very much a precursor to CO2 CDR and has published a lot of uh fantastic evidence and you can now find their synthesis report uh available through their website. Finally, Germany is obviously also very active in this space and has the CDR MAR network and lots of activities within that. And again, Helen's already highlighted this. There will be more European activities in the near future. The call was uh closed on Tuesday this week. So, uh hopefully at some point next year there'll be uh two new projects. One particularly looking at you know alkalinity enhancement and another looking at monitoring of marine CDR techniques. So, watch this space. to close um we were asked to sort of think about the opportunities uh in the near near future for marine CDR in our region as well as concerns and critical next steps. I think it's fair to say that the ocean will be playing a a critical role in uh CDR uh whether actively through the implementation of marine CDR approaches or passively through uh the byproduct of C CO2 being extracted elsewhere or through activities such as enhanced weathering on land that will actively encourage the the transport of bicarbonate into marine spaces. So we need to understand what those impacts will be on the marine environments and at at this point in time the uncertainties both scientific and socioeconomic are prohibiting these deployments at uh uh climatically and commercially significant scales. So we need to conduct in the near term smallcale controlled institute assessments uh and for better understanding what they could do in the future. We also need to uh consider communication. Again this is a point I highlighted before and it echoes that made by Helen. We need to bring all parties together. This is not something that can be done in isolation. Particularly now that um MTDR has been sort of g gathered mainstream marine scientific community interest. Work needs to be done to ensure that as scientists we work together and understand what commercial entities and regulators are looking to see uh as well as members of the public what their concerns are and ensure that our science is applied and conducted in the right way recognizing the need to do CDR. And finally uh here in the UK we and colleagues uh have the capabilities to do this. We just don't have the funding. There is a critical need for independent funding uh to take this type of activities forwards. The the EU calls uh forthcoming are fantastic examples of European based funding but there is a need for greater local national and international collaboration in that space. With that I'd like to thank you for your attention. There's a few highlight sites there but uh we're happy to go to questions. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you so much, Chris, and and thanks to all our panelists um for giving us those great overviews of all this work going on between the presentations today and and what we've heard over the last few days. Um it's it's been a bright light in the week um or the month or the year. Um all three. So um we have plenty of time for questions now. Um feel free to ask a question to all three or you know you can target to to one of our speakers. just use the raise hand function. I'll also try and monitor the the chat. Um, and the first hand I see is Sarah Frius Torres. >> Hi. Hello. Let me tell. >> Okay. So, I've been asking this question every chance I get, but can we please have a frank conversation about the fiasco of running tide which is linked to seaweed sinking because unless we address the problems that happen um I don't see any future in in the area of seaweed sinking and in marine carbon CDR uh at arch because of all the mistakes that happened there. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I can briefly explain what it is, but we need to address this gi giant elephant in the room. >> Uh yeah, I'm I'm I am aware of of running tide. I think I've just seen the chat. So yeah, there's some questions directed to me. Um just to be crystal clear here, the the the research that needs to be done about marine seaweed sequestration is to better understand what the impacts would be. I'm not going to advocate sit here and advocate for running what running tide did off the coast of Iceland or or all the circumstances that led up to that and I'm not privy to all the information. However, what I can say is there is a critical need at this point in time for managing sargasm in the Caribbean region. Deposition of sargasm is currently being conducted by some countries without evaluating what effects that could be on the deep sea environments. As scientists, we need to provide independent information to the regulatory bodies, i.e. the local governments, what effect that would have on their deep sea environments. That information can then be used by those national bodies to understand if they wish to proceed with the deposition of sarasm or other seaweeds as part of their CDR approach. So, I'm I'm not going to advocate for what running tide did or or didn't do or what other entities are looking to do. That's not my function. My function is to provide the scientific information on which regulatory bodies can decide as well as companies as well as members of the public as well as other scientists on which we can decide is this an approach we wish to be considering. Okay. And I think the the running tide discussion did get pushed to another boundary because of the other actions that they took that were not supported by scientific information. As a scientist, as an oceanographer, and marine ecologist, here's the one missing link in all these conversations. We do not have evidence, strong scientific evidence that whatever seaweed you sink into the deep sea, uh, that carbon gets fully sequestered. That evidence is not there. >> I I agree. >> Okay. So I'm just sharing this with the group at large that let's remember that whenever we go through this path of carbon marine CDR in this case seaweed removal whatever kind of seaweed you work on but any other cases let's be clear on where is the scientific evidence for each step. So the biggest problem I see with the sarasin and I'm very familiar with the sarasin in in the Caribbean. I've studied the sarasan ecosystem at length so I know what I'm talking about. So when we talk about all these advising governments and founding new companies or whatever it is that we want to do, let's be clear where the gaps in knowledge are. And this is a giant gap we have when it comes to seaweed. And I see people going into these conversations and selling carbon credits and founding these companies without a solid understanding how the ocean ecosystem works and specifically how uh seaweed actually works. So it's just if anybody wants to follow up with me, I share my email on the chat and let's just be always let's use science as our guidance because I'm seeing all kinds of insanity going on in this space. Thank you. >> Yeah, thank you Sarah and uh using evidence-based science is what we're all trying to do and why we're bringing all these folks in to talk with us. Um so, uh Libby and then Kristen. >> Hi. Thanks. Thanks so much and thank you all for your presentations. Um, I have a question for you, Chris, which is, um, I'm trying to figure out kind of where you are on the continuum of actually producing some products from the C, what do we call it, the CO2, CDR work? I see I I went on the website. I see all the work packages and kind of But have any papers come out? um anything that we could use to say oh this is what they're recommending or conclusions they're drawing. >> Yeah. So I okay I start with the apology for the website that is being updated. So um that is somewhat out of date and the the next phase is due in the next uh month or two. So apologies for the website and that is not up to date. Um in terms of papers obviously the information I highlighted is published and and then other related activities are coming out. We are currently in the critical phase of implementation. Actually we have centers going into different uh field trials to evaluate their monitoring capabilities. We have uh community engagement processes happening at this point in time. Unfortunately the nature of ramping up our activities and getting those communities established means that we will have um a lot of activity coming out in the last year of our our project. But um certainly more up to-ate information will be provided through the website in in a probably a couple of weeks hopefully. So please do do check back there shortly. Yeah, if you can share maybe with Kelly any resources that are published, that would be excellent. >> Absolutely. >> Yeah, thank you. I'll I'll forward them on. Um Kristen, >> thanks. Um thanks for the presentations. all this uh hi Chris this is is a question um for you on um the EIA that you talked about and just um if you could talk a little bit more about you know I mean that's um one approach over a relatively short time frame um looking at MCDR generally and obviously there's many different approaches that'll have that are being deployed in many different locations with varying impacts that need to be assessed and so I was wondering you know how you guys are approaching that EIA process in terms of like impacts on different life history stages for species or different uh habitats or even areas of the water column. Um and then how you see you know um efforts other efforts globally to understand um you know ecosystem environmental impacts species impacts and um things like that and how the you know the need for the next steps in terms of like EIA that's bespoke for um any method that um is is going to move beyond >> yeah it's a critical question and and it is a very broadreaching goal um set by bio envisions to make this EIA framework applicable to all marine CDR techniques and and the bottom line is the approach being taken by Fugrow who who are leading this is to bring their expertise and the EIA approaches using existing marine infrastructure i.e wind turbines offshore uh marine activities they have wellestablished regulatory guidances that we don't see or don't think of when we're applying this from a kind of a bottom-up approach when we're conducting our own at sea trials. So I think they're kind of they're bringing this commercial kind of approach which is what's considered relevant when people look at this those climatically um commercially relevant scales. they're translating that into the marine CDR space making sure that it's going to be applicable to these all these different approaches whether it's coastal uh at sea you know different kind of scenarios and at that point it will then be disseminated to the wider community for input to to pick up on all the things you said because you know the the team as it stands does not have all that knowledge the capabilities to address all those different points for all the different approaches being put out there. it has to be an open transparent participary process that will go through multiple iterative mechanisms. Um so integral are leading that consultancy phase. Uh all I'd say and I'm afraid I can't share any anything more than that because it's still kind of in that process of collation. I guess you can you look to kind of existing EIA type frameworks and think that's where it's going to head but we need to make it applicable to marine CDR community needs and this is where your input will be critical. So, um, probably not not an answer you're looking for because it's not really an answer, but it's it's going to be something that you're going to have to contribute to as well and everyone on this call. >> Great. And if there are, I guess like to the call for papers, if there's, you know, information that's coming out as that team gets underway um, you know, on specific impacts that you can share. I think the committee would appreciate that too. >> Yeah. And just on that, this isn't an isolation activity. I'm well aware company have done their OA EIA framework. Um there's also hourglass grace and the team have done the fantastic one with e ecotological modeling. So there's multiple activities in this space. This is another one that tries to sort of just not not put his arms around it but tries to take a slightly different approach and to to hopefully be more applicable. But yeah certainly make sure that's shared. >> Thank you. Uh Lisa, >> um I have a question for Nanzi. It's okay. We're taking questions for everybody now. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Um I wanted to ask whether there was information about the duration of carbon sequestration that occurs under the aquaculture facilities. Um has that been measured? And also do do the waters have to become or sediments have to be anoxic to sequester that carbon for a long period of time. >> Thank you Lisa. Yes for uh the aquaculture area you know uh it got a lot of impact on environment but it's a a food supply. It's a marine industry and it's existing marine industry. you cannot get it, you cannot remove it because uh people need the food and according to the FAO there are still uh 7% of the total population in the world they are kind of hungry so they we need food and they their food security is a problem because of the land potential is limited but the ocean is vast you know so uh agriculture is needed in the future and The UN encouraged all the uh potential countries for agriculture to develop the marine industry. I mean the agriculture then how to treat the the the environmental impacts from the agriculture. uh for us I mean we do the wise while we increase the current sink we try to do the remediation of the problem like utrofication hypoxia down there in the culture rafts under under the the the culture rafts I mean in the bottom water you got utrofication the hypoxia you got the water acidification by apply upwelling you can fix it uh in the theoretically you're asking about the measurements. uh not not really uh done yet but we do have the preliminary measurements and so far I can what I can see is the the the series uh they're about how to say that 300 pedagram uh per year outputs of the export export production of carbon and half of them is RDOC that was not really measured before and we measured it in the practical way I mean in the field of agriculture and uh if I apply BCMS I mean the the the four current pumps into the aquaculture area it's potentially it's we can get a much higher outputs for carbon six not only in the in in in the the bottom but also in the dissolved form I mean ROC and the world currents ocean currents can carry this part of the car into deep ocean for long-term storage as I mentioned there's about rough estimates of the export in terms of in the form of dissolved organic carbon D O and particulate organic carbon PC they about half and a half so u But enhance the total production, total carbon fixation and the substitution we could reach much much higher and I cannot really tell the number but much much higher export production and current substitution in the future. >> That's the most we learn. >> My question is really do you have an estimate of the sequestration time in the coastal waters where the aquaculture is? Is it 20 years or 50 years or years or 200 years? >> It's really a good question because nobody have a real answer for that part. But you can have a rough estimate. I mean the RDC in the deep water 2,000 meter for example they got a eight or resident time of thousand years on average 5,000 years by analysis like the mass spectrometer analysis you can compare the molecule composition of the DOC from the agriculture area and the DOC see molecules composition in the deeper water like 2,000 meter deep in the South China Sea. You could tell, wow, it's really amazing because those outputs of the RD docu from the aqua culture area got a quite similar uh mass spectrum spectrum similar to that in the water sample from the deep water in the South China Sea down there in the let's see what we did is about 2,000 meter deep. So that then you you got a rough idea. So the microbial current pump is working and at a very high efficiency and this is also this was also tested out by uh simulated ecosystem experimental study using the Aquatron system in the Dhouse University in Canada. that was let's see um seven years ago back in uh 2018 we have a team uh joined by American scientist and also a Canadian scientist we work together using that ecos simulated ecosystem to try whether or not MCP is working and the results is really surprising only one year the transformation microbial transformation Formation of the organal carbon from lay to refra was completed within one year. So we are very much encouraged by that experiment value. Then we moved to the field but the medies are still relatively I mean limited. So we cannot really tell how many years it kind >> yeah can but this is really much more uh promising than the carbon storage in the soil in the terrestrial environments that for sure the 100 years that might be the longest carbon circular environments but in the ocean if once the carbon is carried out down to the deep it can be stored much much longer time than hundreds spenders maybe thousands but only according to the uh structure of the organic matter I mean the molecule structures you can tell that's a kind of uh refractory like the crimes I mean uh >> I know other people have to leave and have to get their questions in so okay we can you offline if you like thank you okay yeah we can thank you if Thank you. Uh we have Carrie and then Mahoot. >> Thanks very much and terrific talks yet again. Um this is a question for Helen. I was just wondering about the Goen hub that uh network that you mentioned and I saw your partnership agreement with the regional hubs, but are you um are all the hubs kind of permitted for OA trials and um is there sharing of resources beyond data helping some regions with financial support for trials or other things? Just wondering how that's working a bit. >> Yeah, sure. So at the moment we don't have financial support for any um any activities go on is is simply a network. What we try to do with the hubs is um some each hubs in a very much a different state of of research and capability. Uh for example, the Northeast Atlantic hub which I co-chair is obviously we've like the North American hub. We have a lot of research uh over the past couple of decades compared to somewhere like the Pacific Islands uh hubs which are much newer to measuring and monitoring carbon and and carbon dioxide um and also doing a lot of the impact work. So we don't have funding specifically, but what we try to do is um share resources. So we have specific um workshops and activities. The IAEA um has been really great at helping out with those um and our they co-und our secretaria as well as a lot of the um activities and also the oceanification international coordination center between them and a number of other communities um and partners. Uh we've been working with the the Ocean Foundation for example to >> and the permitting part as well like are all the hubs permitted for trials or >> No. So so we uh yeah as far as I know um no so I think uh so that's not something Goan specifically gets involved with in terms of permitting. Um, but we're trying to work across hubs to kind of recognize where there's gaps in that sense. So, even with the UK, you'd have to go through specific UK national regulations to to get a permit for whatever activity you wanted to do. Um, and as I'm sure you're aware, many regions don't have such restricted regulations. So, one of the things that we're very interested in making sure happens is equity across that so that we can bring in local partners and communities to make sure that you don't just get some large industries coming in and trying to get permits >> and actually then kind of doing that activity in that space because it's much easier to do than it would be in say the US or the UK or Europe, >> right? Um, >> so that's something that we're we're working on sharing that. >> Thanks. Thanks very much. All right, I guess I will go. Uh, I have a question for both Helen and Chris. So, and they're somewhat related. Helen, you mentioned in your recommendations about uh we need to understand what deployment would look like. And could you expand a little bit on that? Are you talking about you know field trials or deployment deployment and what you what do you see as some promising examples of that and how much work do you think needs to be done to address that and related to that as we are thinking about deployment Chris you talked about community of practice and car business council so in terms of looking at deployment we're also looking at are you is anybody looking at workforce issues as as we are talking about scaling you know training and all of that, you know, as we look at these deployment scenarios. So, first Helen and then Chris, if you could connect those two dots for me, please. >> Yeah, thank you. That's a great question. So, one of the things we've had come up a couple of times when we're trying to communicate the issue of MCDR is how do you describe to someone the scale that's either going to be at trial stage or um sort of pilot trial stage or actually what does this look like if we were to deploy at climate relevant scales. So you hear the numbers being banded around about like 1% of the surface ocean would need to be sucked through a dissolved um direct ocean carbon capture every year to be actually make any sort of climate relevant um deployment removal of carbon dioxide and things like 100 meter swaths of the ocean of of the coastal ocean would have to be covered in macro algae to make a climate relevant sequestration of carbon. But realistically, is that what it's going to look like? Right? So, so how do we explain to someone either a national policy maker or a marine spatial planner what does that scale actually look like in reality when when for the UK we have these global carbon budgets and in that we have like for the next uh 10 20 years what they're going to budget the carbon is going to how how they're going to budget that carbon and at the moment CDR features as as sort of capturing maybe 5% of the carbon in that carbon budget and there's no marine in that at the moment at all. But that's the sort of information that they're going to need to include in the UK's carbon budget or national um determined contributions is do I do I go and can I is is scaling actually just a combination of I'm going to do some direct ocean capture here because this is where this space is best to do that or I'm going to do some ocean clinity here near this coral reef because that's the best place to do do it and how can I pick and choose that to within my marine space to actually manage that and and what does that look like? And then on the larger grander scale, some of these things are going to have to be done in international waters. So what does that scale actually look like? Is it going to be putting a huge amount of iron into the Southern Ocean, the whole Southern Ocean? Where does that iron come from? And and the ships, the logistics for actually making that happen at that scale. Those are still questions that I think we are starting to to tackle and to look at in the research field. And modeling is fundamental as part of that. But there's also a huge amount of societal questions that we need to be asking in terms of how do we how do we plan for that and where does it where does all this resource and energy requirements in a kind of life cycle analysis type of assessment take place. And so there are um some really move strong moves forward in terms of life cycle assessments. Um I can't think of them off the top of my head. Um but there's there's some good progress being made in kind of combining those aspects. But I think that's something that we really need to um try and push a bit more in uh as we develop the technologies and the environmental impact assessments moving forward. I maybe we're not there at answering those questions yet, but I do think we need to have those in our minds as we are looking at answering those questions. Um so I hope that helps a little bit. >> Thank you, Chris. Yeah, I mean I disagree with everything that Helen just said. I mean, so I don't want to sort of reiterate that, but in terms of the the workforce issue, you're absolutely right. I think we're seeing a massive growth in in publications, commercial uh scientific interest in this sector. Um we are not perhaps queued up queued up to to respond as a kind of a a training network through our universities. It takes time for for graduates to come through certainly to get the experience and exposure to what the sector needs. I think we also need to recognize that this isn't just a scientific question. It's not just a scientific need of scientific workforce. It's a it's a social understanding. It's that broader context for implement implementation as well as the legal aspects as well as the the markets. You know, it is crosscutting. It is interdicciplinary and that whole sector needs to be attuned to the unique needs of marine carbon dioxide removal. You know, we have to bring different sectors into this area. We have to work collectively and collaborate. And I think this is kind of the message I I want to highlight in in the talk is that we have to communicate. We have to understand what the the companies we wish to deploy this are trying to do. We have to understand what the governments who might be looking at this as a means of of dealing with issues or their their NDC's want to achieve and we have to understand what the technical and economic viabilities and perceptions are and I think there are recognized gaps in our capabilities at this point in time. PhD students, postocs, researchers are coming into space, many of whom are going into the sector with knowledge. So we as the scientific community have that responsibility to sort of impart that that authority that knowledge of of how to do this in the right way in the considerations, but we can't do it alone. We have to recognize the limits of our understanding and make sure that other sectors are coming into this play and you know there are many great entities doing that. You know this is this is not something that's not happening. It is happening. I think you just, you know, we need to recognize there's a lot of work to be done if we're going to achieve or if we're going to work towards the potential utilization of marine carbon dioxide as a resource. You know, that's going to take not years, it's probably going to take decades, I think, a long time to get there to to those sorts of scales. And the question is, do we have that time as a global community? So, a lot of work's got to happen in the near future. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Chris. Um, Nanju and Helen, thanks for staying on a little extra, Helen. I know, uh, you need to run. Um, this has been extremely informative and, um, if we have any additional questions, which I imagine we will, um, hopefully we can communicate that via email um, for the time being. So, thanks so much for joining us. Um, you can stay on and please do stay on. Um, next we're going to play a pre-recorded um, uh, presentation from Philip Lloyd. um he's with the University of Tasmania and um this is part of this discussion but since he couldn't be here and we couldn't ask him questions I thought we would let the others go and then we can start um with this so please stay tuned um and let's hear from Phil >> Good afternoon uh Kelly and Scott from Australia Philip Boyd here and in line with the director we had uh we'll give you some perspectives from Australia Australia that we've been discussing. They're not all necessarily uh Australian in content and they they go slightly beyond MCR science into some uh other issues around uh the markets and also education. Uh recently we provided uh a guide for policy makers for the UN ocean envoy Peter Thompson that was presented at the blue zone and the UN ocean conference in Nice. uh as we see it the key ro role for marine CDR is to be part of a portfolio that we refer to as one hour CDR. Uh in the slide here you can see that at present uh the land and ocean uh sinks are taking up anthropogenic CO2. If we only focus on landbased CDR then we will we will see uh significant eluxes of CO2 coming out of the ocean and indeed also part out of the still out of the land reservoirs. So we need a more holistic approach to CDR and that has to involve both the land and the ocean reservoirs. So this is from a recent piece that's uh in in review and environmental research letters. In terms of what we might term biological MCDR, we're seeing a number of new critiques on the terminology used around the biological carbon pump. uh recent paper by Andre this but one last year by Ivy Franger talking about the importance of the return pathway of uh respired DIC and how it's the the key factor that's really driving the connection between the biological carbon pump and alteration in atmospheric CO2. So we see these as being very important and influential documents given that uh a number of approaches involve some sort of manipulation of the biological carbon pump and sticking on the biological carbon pump then uh recent work we've been doing in my lab using what are being called enhanced biological argo floats uh with additional sensors is where we have particle imagery and where we can get 14 uh size classes of particle information is providing useful data in this slide here in the left hand panel is a is a solar ocean bloom uh we're able to actually then look at the uh the particle dynamics the sinking the fragmentation and we're also able when we if as well when we recover the float then to get the corresponding imagery so I think certainly for biological ical uh MCDR. This will really enhance things with monitoring, reporting and verification and also looking at side effects. Clearly, there are still major issues around the ability for uh BGCO to provide MRV for uh for chemical MCDR. Moving on then uh to discussions around chemical MCDR and based on a very extensive series of presentations that were given at the Leazge colloquium uh in Belgium in uh in late May and early June earlier this year uh there was a very strong presence uh from from Delhauszy uh from from planetary and from a number of other groups. The consensus I think in the room that day across certainly the scientists was that given the reaction stoometry for most of the methods um upscaling is really going to be an issue whether we're using olivine or sodium hydroxide or or other methods uh I think we're probably looking at tens to hundreds of megat tons in upscaling but certainly not the gigatons that may be needed to uh counteract uh residual hardware to abate emissions uh which is again the sort of language coming out of summary for policy makers from the IPCC AR6 2022 paper. So certainly some some sobering things to think about there. Moving on then to looking at some of the companies. Uh I do this with my hat on as co-chair of the UN Gazamp working group 41 on on MCDR. Certainly the Israeli startup uh Gigablau would appear to be uh if you like the new kind of running tide that that that people are looking up to and trying to emulate. They secured a big deal from uh Sky 50 Aviation. Uh they probably will worth 30 to40 million dollars over the next few years. They're working with NIWA, the National Institute of Water and Atmosphere in New Zealand. And from discussions I've had offline with with some of the scientists there. There's certainly some concerns about uh some of the the methodologies they're using in particular trying to use acoustics for uh for MRB uh for their engineered uh particles. But certainly we'll be keeping a very close eye on this company. They're they're using the invested money as I say of 30 or 40 million in advanced purchase options to to start to push ahead with uh patents and also push ahead with using uh the the PUR group in Europe to do a uh a sort of a a uh a portfolio on on their MRV. I read both documents. I find them to be less than convincing. Um the report from Pura covers 90% of the bases but the 10% they leave out are the absolutely uh critical uh aspects of this technique that need attention. Moving on then we're starting to see an increasing number of articles that are very critical of MCDR. uh I see these as being somewhat emotional and and certainly not the sort of agnostic reporting that we should be seeing from scientists. Uh for example, the dosey the devotion stewardship initiative uh wrote a manuscript. Uh I provided comments on it really to try and make it a little bit more objective. But certainly the first draft was was very poor uh scientifically speaking. And so I think this is a concern given that we we want a level playing field to really look at the candidate methods for MCDR and evaluate them objectively as scientists. Another issue we're having in Australia and probably other places is this growing conflation of carbon capture stories with carbon dioxide removal. Given that the last two cups have had at least 500 industry advocates for CCS, uh I see this as being very dangerous. Uh the box that I've uh the text I've marked up here in the box below uses almost identical language to that from the summary of for policy makers IPCC uh working group 3 AR6 report. Uh and with that sort of overlap, it it becomes, I think, very challenging for government departments and organizations, particularly in Australia, that there really are some issues around here that we're trying to resolve and we're actually trying to work with them to to run a sort of a review on terminology, which I think is necessary. Another key issue is the continuing colonization of of the ocean. It started off with with mangroves uh and other things in in the nearshore. Then they're talking fields and now this this recent paper has sort of commodified the oceans uh biological carbon pump. We've actually particularly with people being keen to add uh natural carbon stocks to their nally determined contributions. We've actually just written a response to this piece which we we submitted recently and actually did it with some terrestrial uh CDR people who again are concerned about how one can magically begin to manage a forest and suddenly that carbon can appear on the le on your ledger for for your NDC. uh but certainly concerned hints here with some of the examples they use from uh from Micronesia and Polynesia in terms of how you can add an eye wateringly large amount of carbon onto your NDC. So it's another issue was concerning us. The final two uh again the carbon markets are not fit for purpose for for any form of of CDR. This was a comment we wrote a little while ago. Uh but really pointing out that we need to have something that's actually customuilt for CDR and the complexities of CDR. It has to take in how reliable these approaches are. It needs a warranty approach. It also has to take into account how durable they are. So that's another thing that needs to be resolved. And finally, u we've been pushing in Australia CDR education. We ran our first week-l long school. We had 50 participants. We had a very wide range of of different uh different lectures and practicals that were given. And we're currently talking with with folks in the US about uh passing on some of that knowledge. Uh we'd run another virtual school again uh in in the coming month or so. Uh so my 10 minutes are up. So thank you. And again, apologies I couldn't be up. uh uh the time zones were not in my favor. Okay. Thank you. Any questions? Maybe put them in in the chat or an email. Thanks, Kelly. Thanks, Scott. Bye. >> Thank you, Phillip. Um yeah, so committee members, we can compile any questions or comments that we have and and we'll follow up um with an email. So, so thanks so much, Philip, for giving that uh presentation to us. Um and then our final uh recording is from Peter McCriedi um with O uh Blue Carbon Lab. Um and this is one of the lightning talks that we ran out of time for on Monday, but it is a great one. Um please do stay tuned with us for five more minutes. >> Hi, my name is Pet McCry and I am the director of the blue carbon lab and RMIT University Center for Nature Positive Solutions. um delighted to be given this invitation to speak before the MCDR standing committee and summarize where blue carbon is at the state of science after 15 or so years of research. I really wish I could have been there live to deliver this. It just overlaps with um the uh international blue carbon working group meeting uh here in Sri Lanka. Um let's get underway. So quick recap. The term blue carbon was coined back in 2009 and it refers to carbon that is captured and stored by coastal and marine ecosystems. But since at this uh event many of you are talking about other types of ocean carbon I'll try to be more precise which is really that it's biologically driven carbon fluxes and storage in coastal vegetated ecosystems that are amenable to management. Blue carbon ecosystems traditionally are the coastal wetlands such as tidal marshes and mangro forests and also undersea systems like seagrass meadows and to some unknown extent seaweeds. Although what constitutes blue carbon is a matter of healthy debate. Tidal mud flats, oyster reefs, coraline algae and some other systems have properties that mean they could be included in blue carbon. Blue carbon ecosystems are regarded for having very high carbon burial efficiency and long-term sequestration. They can store carbon over millennial time scales. There's really high demand for blue carbon from governments and private sector and the demand far outweighs the supply. Policy has moved very fast. For example, many nations have included blue carbon in their NDCs. uh more carbon credit methodologies are emerging at a great pace. There's been an exponential growth in the science. There's been more than 15,000 scientists that have authored papers on blue carbon and also the term blue carbon has been trending upwards in popular media according to Google trends. This is where blue carbon credits are being generated around the world. about 80 projects mostly mangrove systems and also mostly around the equator in developing nations. Most blue carbon credits are being developed by for-profit companies and the transport sector is the largest buyer of blue carbon credits. The amount of blue carbon within planet earth exceeds 30 billion tons which span across more than 185 million hectares. Avoided emissions and restoration of blue carbon ecosystems could abate greenhouse gas emissions to the equivalent of about 3% of global emissions peranom. And based on the previous slide, it means we've barely scratched the surface in terms of what is possible, in terms of the amount of activity we've done against what is possible. Just for the sake of putting a number on it, there's probably about 99.5% still to go, and that's not including the nonconventional blue carbon ecosystems. So, what's holding us back? Well, the barriers are social. For example, getting communities on board and working out how we share benefits equitably with coastal communities, governance, clarifying carbon rights. Who owns the carbon? Is it the government? Is it indigenous groups? Is it private land holders or some other group? Uh finance, restoring wetlands has high costs. How do we make sure that blue carbon produce can be done cost effectively or better yet profitably? and maybe add in co- benefits to that as being one potential um solution, but also a helpful segue to something else I wanted to point out, which is that blue carbon ecosystems are much more than carbon. They protect coasts against extreme weather events. In many parts of the world, a mangro forest can mean the difference between life and death. Here we are on the shorelines of um Numbo in Sri Lanka where we know that extreme weather events um tsunamis um storm surge have had incredible loss impact in terms of loss of lives and infrastructure. These ecosystems also provide nursery grounds for fish that underpin our fisheries. That's valuable nutrition for billions of people around the planet. They bolster biodiversity, critical habitat, some of the rarest species on the planet. also um important food and habitat for some charismatic species like turtles. They help remove pollutants from our coastlines including plastics, heavy metals, harmful bacteria, viruses and so on. Uh that's my 5 minutes. Apologies if um that was a lot of information in a short amount of time. I hope it was useful. Thank you for your time. You can find more information about uh my group's work uh which is RMIT's Center of the Nature Positive Solutions and also the Blue Carbon Lab. And I will close with one thing which might seem counterproductive to my own interest but in blue carbon that is which is that I think ocean alkalinity enhancement deserves the attention that you're giving it and more. The scale of possibilities they're immense and um it ocean alkalinity brings me a lot of hope but blue carbon is also important. So thank you. >> All right thank you Pete. Um and again if you have questions for him um I can follow up with him in an email. Um so that brings us to the end of our public session. Um I think we have one quick slide to show. Um this has been an amazing week of information gathering for us. Yes, these are all the folks that have joined us this week. Um we thank you all for sharing your time. takes a long time to prepare these uh presentations and and be with us and stay on for questions. Um we just really appreciate you and you know that the work of our committee is reliant on on folks like you donating your time and your expertise to to enrich our conversations. So um just want to say thank you. Um and uh if you're a committee member um you get a 30-minut break today and then we'll join back in close session uh at 2 pm Eastern. So thanks so much. This was fantastic. >> Thank you.