US National Academies proposes $125 million ocean carbon sequestration effort

As anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions ‘greatly exceed’ the ability of nature to remove it, the US National Academies is recommending a new 10-year, $125 million (£94.5 million) research programme to examine how oceans could be harnessed to remove carbon dioxide from the air.

The report argues that carbon dioxide removal, also known as negative emissions technologies, will be required to address global warming. Its authors suggest that oceans hold great potential for uptake and longer-term sequestration of anthropogenic carbon dioxide because they act as large natural reservoirs for carbon dioxide, holding roughly 50 times as much inorganic carbon as the preindustrial atmosphere.