UN Climate Change meeting SB 58 side event: The GST & Ocean-based Carbon Dioxide Removal

Monday 12 June 2023 - Monday 12 June 2023

Location: Bonn, Germany

The GST & Ocean-based Carbon Dioxide Removal: opportunities, uncertainties, risks & future needs
 
Monday 12 June, 11.45-13.00 CEST
 
Plymouth Marine Laboratory and partners Ocean & Climate Platform (OCP), Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), Scripps Institution of Oceanography (Scripps-UCSD) and the American Geophysical Union (AGU) are organising a side event at the upcoming June UN Climate Change meeting SB 58 in Bonn, Germany, titled: ‘The Global Stocktake (GST) & Ocean-based Carbon Dioxide Removal: opportunities, uncertainties, risks & future needs’.

View the side-event programme here >>
And livestream here >>



The First Global Stocktake is taking place this year assessing the global response to the climate crisis. This provides the opportunity to include the world’s ocean as a key element for nations, and the global community, in delivering the Paris Agreement and addressing the Glasgow Pact of better inclusion of the ocean in all relevant UNFCCC processes.
 
It is widely acknowledged that limiting warming close to 1.5°C by 2100 will not just require significant cuts in CO₂ emissions, but also active removal of CO₂ from the atmosphere. Not surprisingly, there is therefore a growing interest in making use of the ocean for the removal of atmospheric CO₂, either via manipulation of ocean chemistry or by increasing ocean uptake and storage of carbon through intentional enhancement of natural biological and geochemical processes – techniques collectively called Ocean Carbon Dioxide Removal, in short OCDR, also referred to as Marine CDR or MCDR. It is important to note that any CDR is not a substitute for decarbonization and will only be effective when the required reductions in CO₂ emissions are achieved.
The ocean currently takes up about 30% of our CO2 emissions and is the largest store of carbon on Earth. The stability (uptake and release of CO₂) of this store under climate change is of great concern.

The side event will showcase the uncertainties and potential of OCDR and share recommendations for the future way forward for assessing OCDR methods and their potential for limiting warming to 1.5 °C, enhancing Nationally Determined Contributions, and contributing to the GST.

The event will be opened by a high level address of the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for the Ocean, Peter Tomson and concluded with a high level address by the Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission & Assistant Director General of UNESCO.
 
Our Professor Tom Bell, Merit Scientist and Air-Sea Exchange Team lead, will be speaking on ‘The need for a monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) framework to assess the efficacy of different Ocean Carbon Dioxide Removing techniques’.
 
View the side-event programme here >>
And livestream here >>
 
Professor Bell and his colleagues from PML’s International Office, Dr Matt Frost and Thecla Keizer, will also be attending a number of meetings and event during the conference, including the ‘Ocean and Climate Change Dialogue’ scheduled for the 13^th and 14^th June, focusing on coastal ecosystem restoration, including blue carbon, and fisheries and food security where Dr Frost will be a Break Out group Rapporteur.  View details here: https://unfccc.int/event/ocean-and-climate-change-dialogue-2023