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Fertilising the ocean: A bad idea and illegal too
Julio Godoy
The craziest proposals to reverse climate change include so-called “geo-engineering" projects.
With reversing climate change and global warming becoming a more urgent issue by the day, numerous new proposals to reduce the carbon concentration in the atmosphere, some of them plain crazy, are being putting constantly on the agenda.
The craziest proposals include so-called “geo-engineering" projects.
For leading scientific researchers attending the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Barcelona, such geo-engineering projects must be banned for good, especially the plans by some private corporations and governments from the industrialised countries to artificially "fertilise" oceans with iron and other chemical particles to accelerate the natural process of carbon dioxide (CO2) sequestration by photosynthesis and helping phytoplankton to bloom on a larger scale.
The arguments against such "fertilisation of the oceans" projects are both environmental as well as legal. Philomene Verlaan, law professor of ocean policy at the University of Hawai, told IPS Terra Viva that such plans would be "plainly illegal. Under the United National Law of the Sea Convention (LOSC), all intentional actions aimed at polluting the sea are forbidden," she pointed out.
"Geo-engineering" refers to the intentional, large-scale manipulation of the environment to bring about environmental change, with the aim of eventually capturing carbon from the atmosphere, thus reducing the greenhouse effect caused by CO2, and global warming.
Phytoplankton, micro organisms that dwell on the surface of the ocean, despite their diminutive size, collectively account for half of the carbon dioxide absorbed annually from the earth’s atmosphere by plants. Through this process of photosynthesis, plankton captures carbon and sunlight for growth, releasing oxygen into the atmosphere.
But phytoplankton productivity in the world’s oceans is declining as a result of climate change and warmer temperatures. Based on this fact, private business, such as the Australia-based Ocean Nourishment Corporation (ONC), and U.S. company Climos, affirm that by dumping "nutrients" such as iron, nitrogen and urea into the sea could lead to growth of new phytoplankton that would by absorbing more carbon dioxide would reduce climate change.
Climos revealed last September that it is about to undertake its first ocean fertilisation project within the next 18 months, most likely in the Southern Ocean. But environmental activists and scientists fear that ocean fertilisation could have negative side effects that would lead to further loss of marine biodiversity.
Ken Buesseler, senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, said at the congress that "despite that recently several important studies of ocean fertilisation have been carried out, the efficacy by which the phytoplankton (artificially grown) sequesters atmospheric CO2 remains poorly constrained."
"We do not understand the full range of intended and unintended biogeochemical and ecological impacts of artificial ocean fertilisation," Buesseler said. Unintended ecological impacts could be the artificial transformation of marine habitats, by introducing alien species, or destroying native ones. He pleaded that additional research be carried out, to increase the scientific grasp of those impacts.
Even David Santillo, senior scientist at the Greenpeace Research laboratories, and professor at the School of Biosciences at the University of Exeter in Britain, cautions: "Scientific research can only be legitimate to understand the natural processes, but not to prepare the field for commercial activities that would transform the environment in ways we do not understand and most certainly we cannot control."
Margaret Leinen, chief scientist at Climos, urged that further research be undertaken. "Climate change constitutes an enormous challenge for us, we cannot afford to do nothing," she said. But Verlaan recalled that the legal framework applicable to seawater pollution is very clear, and does not allow for commercial plans of dumping so-called "nutrients" into the oceans.
"The problem," Verlaan admitted, "is that the convention does not consider sanctions against such crimes." One possibility to legally pursue "ocean fertilising" actions before international courts would be that one country lodges a complaint against those states that allows such projects to be carried in their national jurisdiction. Another would be that nationals of those countries lodge the charges against their own authorities.
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| Farewell: TerraViva correspondents draw interesting conclusions. |
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