NOAA today announced the release of a white paper outlining a potential NOAA Carbon Dioxide Removal Science Strategy as part of the agency’s climate mitigation portfolio. Comments on NOAA’s potential future role in carbon dioxide removal research will be formally sought in a forthcoming Federal Register notice, and NOAA will hold virtual listening sessions to gather public input on Monday, Dec. 12 (3 pm ET) and Wednesday, Dec. 14 (10 am ET and 5 pm ET).
The draft strategy identifies and explains 11 carbon dioxide removal strategies, the strengths and weaknesses of each, and NOAA’s potential research contributions, with NOAA saying that the strategy “will guide the agency’s potential role” in carbon dioxide removal and that the agency could use “existing and innovative observations, models, ecosystem assessments, and spatial planning tools to inform evidence-based decisions” that could be used by the carbon removal sector.
Carbon dioxide removal approaches addressed in the draft document include macroalgal cultivation for carbon sequestration, ocean alkalinity enhancement, direct ocean capture, biological and physical carbon pump enhancement, coastal blue carbon, and marine ecosystem biomass.
Among other things, the draft strategy notes the importance of valuing and targeting carbon sequestration and its enhancement as a key benefit and management priority when developing new marine protected areas and aquatic farms, and highlights the opportunity to use an atlas-based spatial planning approach (including NOAA marine spatial datasets and suitability models) to “conceptualize the reality for marine CDR in the U.S and to provide information needed for supporting permitting and regulatory decision making.” To support carbon dioxide removal research, the draft strategy notes that NOAA can “increase spatial planning capacity to include coordination of marine CDR subject matter expertise and potential expansion of data resources.”
