NOAA Announces $24.3M for Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal Partnership Projects

On 09/07/2023, the Department of Commerce and NOAA announced $24 million for projects that will tackle the climate crisis by researching marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) strategies, as part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda. $14 million from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the largest climate investment in history, will go toward 10 projects that examine how effectively and safely strategies like enhancing ocean alkalinity or sinking seaweed remove carbon from the atmosphere.

NOAA’s Ocean Acidification Program led this funding opportunity on behalf of the National Oceanographic Partnership Program (NOPP). It will support projects with partners from 47 institutions as part of the Investing in Coastal Communities and Climate Resilience provision under NOAA’s Integrated Ocean Observing System IRA priorities. 

The region shown includes some of the Shantar Islands and part of Uda Bay in the western Sea of Okhotsk. This scene was collected by Landsat 8 on September 24, 2021. Credit: NASA
The region shown includes some of the Shantar Islands and part of Uda Bay in the western Sea of Okhotsk. This scene was collected by Landsat 8 on September 24, 2021. Credit: NASA (Photo website link)

A full list of the marine carbon dioxide removal projects is accessible here. 

These new projects expand NOAA’s involvement in carbon dioxide removal research. In June, NOAA released its Carbon Dioxide Removal Strategy. The strategy does not endorse any specific technique. Rather, it outlines NOAA’s potential research contributions in four key areas to understand the feasibility and impacts of carbon dioxide removal techniques: 1) observing networks; 2) modeling the impacts of carbon dioxide removal pathways; 3) environmental impacts; and 4) decision support. 

NOAA’s full press release can be found here, and a news story about this announcement can be found here.