A new treaty to protect oceans, now close to taking effect, would make it harder to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere through controversial geoengineering techniques like sinking seaweed and iron filings into the sea or storing carbon dioxide in seabed rocks, experts told Climate Home.
After a spate of approvals at a UN ocean summit in the French city of Nice this week, 50 countries and the European Union have now ratified a pact known as Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction or the High Seas Treaty. Once ratified by 10 more states, it will come into force 120 days later.
The treaty would give governments the power to create protected areas in international waters – the parts of the ocean more than 370 km from land which make up the majority of the world’s sea. These Marine Protected Areas could restrict environmentally damaging activities like fishing boats dragging nets for their catches.
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Ralph Regenvanu, climate minister for the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, told Climate Home from Nice that protecting biodiversity in the sea would “reduce the effects of climate change on the oceans” by making them healthier and more resilient. This would also help the oceans absorb carbon, he said.
Tom Pickerell, a marine biologist and global director of the World Resources Institute’s ocean programme, compared this treaty to the 2015 Paris climate agreement in its importance. “This will be the ocean moment,” he said.
Marine CO2 removal
The treaty would also establish a framework requiring governments to conduct impact assessments for activities on the high seas that “may cause substantial pollution of or significant and harmful changes to the marine environment”.
These assessments would likely be required for activities designed to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and slow down climate change. Such geoengineering techniques – whose ethics and feasibility are still being hotly debated – include the storage of captured CO2 in sea rocks and the sinking of carbon-absorbing seaweed to the seabed.
Other methods include putting iron filings or alkalis into the water. The iron stimulates phytoplankton which captures CO2 and the alkalis are chemical compounds that make the ocean less acidic, allowing it to absorb more greenhouse gases.
“As you can imagine, there’s a lot of questions, a lot of uncertainty” about these techniques, Pickerell said. “What would happen if we have a phytoplankton boom? Would it be possible that there are unintended consequences? These are all the things we’ve got to be aware of before we… rush headlong into it.”
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Pickerell said that if a separate regulatory regime for these kind of activities is not set up, then the treaty could “act as a brake” on them and may help stimulate regulation.
According to analysis by researchers from Columbia and Northwestern Universities, if the treaty comes into force, it would still be up to the government with jurisdiction over a certain project whether it proceeds – but other governments would have to be notified and consulted.
Real-world experiments rare
Outside of laboratories, marine carbon dioxide removal is rare. But on the south coast of England, a UK government-funded programme is sucking CO2 out of seawater to make room for it to absorb more and, off the coast of Iceland, US-based startup Running Tide sank wood chips into the sea last year.
Over 20 countries used the UN Ocean Conference in Nice as an opportunity to ratify the High Seas Treaty. Others like French Polynesia, the UK, Colombia, Brunei and France announced new restrictions on damaging fishing practices like bottom-trawling in their national waters, which are shallower and outside the scope of the treaty.
Bottom-trawling is when fishing vessels drag a net along the floor of the ocean to scoop up fish. This process disturbs the carbon stored in sediment, releasing it as carbon dioxide and acidifying the ocean.
The Spanish government recently challenged a European Union ban on bottom-trawling in certain areas of the northeast Atlantic. But the EU’s general court rejected the challenge this month – a move welcomed by environmental campaigners.
ClientEarth ocean lawyer Francesco Maletto said “there is now too much evidence about the damage wrought by wide-scale, repeat bottom-trawling to ignore”.
The post Deep-sea geoengineering set for scrutiny, as ocean treaty approval nears appeared first on Climate Home News.
Deep-sea geoengineering set for scrutiny, as ocean treaty approval nears
A new storm recovery charge could soon hit Georgia Power customers’ bills, as climate change drives more destructive weather across the state.
Hurricane Helene may be long over, but its costs are poised to land on Georgians’ electricity bills. After the storm killed 37 people in Georgia and caused billions in damage in September 2024, Georgia Power is seeking permission from state regulators to pass recovery costs on to customers.
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Gabrielle Dreyfus is chief scientist at the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, Thomas Röckmann is a professor of atmospheric physics and chemistry at Utrecht University, and Lena Höglund Isaksson is a senior research scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
This March scientists and policy makers will gather near the site in Italy where methane was first identified 250 years ago to share the latest science on methane and the policy and technology steps needed to rapidly cut methane emissions. The timing is apt.
As new tools transform our understanding of methane emissions and their sources, the evidence they reveal points to a single conclusion: Human-caused methane emissions are still rising, and global action remains far too slow.
This is the central finding of the latest Global Methane Status Report. Four years into the Global Methane Pledge, which aims for a 30% cut in global emissions by 2030, the good news is that the pledge has increased mitigation ambition under national plans, which, if fully implemented, could result in the largest and most sustained decline in methane emissions since the Industrial Revolution.
The bad news is this is still short of the 30% target. The decisive question is whether governments will move quickly enough to turn that bend into the steep decline required to pump the brake on global warming.
What the data really show
Assessing progress requires comparing three benchmarks: the level of emissions today relative to 2020, the trajectory projected in 2021 before methane received significant policy focus, and the level required by 2030 to meet the pledge.
The latest data show that global methane emissions in 2025 are higher than in 2020 but not as high as previously expected. In 2021, emissions were projected to rise by about 9% between 2020 and 2030. Updated analysis places that increase closer to 5%. This change is driven by factors such as slower than expected growth in unconventional gas production between 2020 and 2024 and lower than expected waste emissions in several regions.
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This updated trajectory still does not deliver the reductions required, but it does indicate that the curve is beginning to bend. More importantly, the commitments already outlined in countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions and Methane Action Plans would, if fully implemented, produce an 8% reduction in global methane emissions between 2020 and 2030. This would turn the current increase into a sustained decline. While still insufficient to reach the Global Methane Pledge target of a 30% cut, it would represent historical progress.
Solutions are known and ready
Scientific assessments consistently show that the technical potential to meet the pledge exists. The gap lies not in technology, but in implementation.
The energy sector accounts for approximately 70% of total technical methane reduction potential between 2020 and 2030. Proven measures include recovering associated petroleum gas in oil production, regular leak detection and repair across oil and gas supply chains, and installing ventilation air oxidation technologies in underground coal mines. Many of these options are low cost or profitable. Yet current commitments would achieve only one third of the maximum technically feasible reductions in this sector.
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Agriculture and waste also provide opportunities. Rice emissions can be reduced through improved water management, low-emission hybrids and soil amendments. While innovations in technology and practices hold promise in the longer term, near-term potential in livestock is more constrained and trends in global diets may counteract gains.
Waste sector emissions had been expected to increase more rapidly, but improvements in waste management in several regions over the past two decades have moderated this rise. Long-term mitigation in this sector requires immediate investment in improved landfills and circular waste systems, as emissions from waste already deposited will persist in the short term.
New measurement tools
Methane monitoring capacity has expanded significantly. Satellite-based systems can now identify methane super-emitters. Ground-based sensors are becoming more accessible and can provide real-time data. These developments improve national inventories and can strengthen accountability.
However, policy action does not need to wait for perfect measurement. Current scientific understanding of source magnitudes and mitigation effectiveness is sufficient to achieve a 30% reduction between 2020 and 2030. Many of the largest reductions in oil, gas and coal can be delivered through binding technology standards that do not require high precision quantification of emissions.
The decisive years ahead
The next 2 years will be critical for determining whether existing commitments translate into emissions reductions consistent with the Global Methane Pledge.
Governments should prioritise adoption of an effective international methane performance standard for oil and gas, including through the EU Methane Regulation, and expand the reach of such standards through voluntary buyers’ clubs. National and regional authorities should introduce binding technology standards for oil, gas and coal to ensure that voluntary agreements are backed by legal requirements.
One approach to promoting better progress on methane is to develop a binding methane agreement, starting with the oil and gas sector, as suggested by Barbados’ PM Mia Mottley and other leaders. Countries must also address the deeper challenge of political and economic dependence on fossil fuels, which continues to slow progress. Without a dual strategy of reducing methane and deep decarbonisation, it will not be possible to meet the Paris Agreement objectives.
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The next four years will determine whether available technologies, scientific evidence and political leadership align to deliver a rapid transition toward near-zero methane energy systems, holistic and equity-based lower emission agricultural systems and circular waste management strategies that eliminate methane release. These years will also determine whether the world captures the near-term climate benefits of methane abatement or locks in higher long-term costs and risks.
The Global Methane Status Report shows that the world is beginning to change course. Delivering the sharper downward trajectory now required is a test of political will. As scientists, we have laid out the evidence. Leaders must now act on it.
The post Curbing methane is the fastest way to slow warming – but we’re off the pace appeared first on Climate Home News.
Curbing methane is the fastest way to slow warming – but we’re off the pace
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