Humanity can still limit global warming to 1.5 degrees. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has shown this in its special report from 2018. However, the scenarios published in the report also demonstrate that we must actively remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, in addition to reduce emissions to near zero, in order to achieve the goal. Scientists from 14 institutions in six countries will be examining the opportunities and risks of ocean-based negative emissions technologies (NETs) in this project.
Knowledge about ocean-based NETs remains limited, although the ocean has a much higher capacity for carbon absorption and storage - because of its surface area and volume.
OceanNETs will investigate the potentials and risks of proposed ocean-based NETs using a transdisciplinary research approach. The project aims to find out whether ocean-based NETs can play an essential and sustainable role in achieving climate neutrality. The focus is not only on the scientific evaluation, but also on their impact on politics, economy and society, and on how this might determine our ability to deploy NETs.
