[NYTr] A New Sheriff to Scrutinize High-Seas Climate Cowboys

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by tsimonds - activ-l

Wired blog - Nov 9, 2007
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/11/a-new-sheriff-f.html

A New Sheriff to Scrutinize High-Seas Climate Cowboys

By Brandon Keim

Seeking to impose order on largely unregulated high-seas climate
engineers, the International Maritime Organization will soon announce
its plans to regulate oceanic geoengineering projects.

I've reported a lot on ocean fertilization lately, and this is welcome
news. Feeding plankton with iron or urea could be a valuable tool for
ridding the atmosphere of greenhouse gases, but there's potential for
abuse: if engineers don't count the carbon benefits correctly, they
could unwittingly release more CO2 than they save. With large-scale
projects having potentially regional, if not global, consequences, it'd
be nice if someone could make sure they make sense scientifically.

Enter the International Maritime Organization, the high-seas overseers
who drafted the London Convention in 1972. Until now, the Convention has
regulated only ocean pollution. Dumps of, for example, tons of
plankton-feeding iron don't comee under its purview.

Some have suggested that the Convention's purview  be expanded. Earlier
this summer, the Convention's own scientific advisors said much the same
thing, and expressed concern that ocean fertilization projects could go
global before they were adequately understood.

A few minutes ago, Jim Thomas from the ETC Group told me that a London
Convention meeting currently being held in (surprise) London was about
to conclude with a formal declaration of increased ocean fertilization
regulation.

As Thomas explained it, the regulation is a little confusing -- not
through any fault of his, but because maritime law is pretty confusing
to begin with. But the bottom line is this:

>From now on, London Convention rules and regulations -- those presently
existing, and those drafted in the future -- will apply to
geoengineering projects that occur on the high seas, or in any way
involve its 31 signatory countries.

Even if a project happens in non-territorial waters, if it involves one
of the 31 countries -- a company or research partner is based there,
the ship flies under that flag, the materials come from there -- then
the project needs to be vetted by relevant national bodies. The
national bodies can also defer their regulatory process to that
suggested by the Convention.

The only way to conduct an ocean geoengineering project without
oversight is to place it in waters belonging to a country that didn't
sign the Convention, and make sure that everything and everyone
involved traces its origins to a non-signatory country.

So cowboy engineering is still possible, but it's a lot more difficult
-- and, more importantly, it just looks bad. "Hey, Mr. Big Institutional
Investor, take a look at these tests we conducted off the Ivory Coast,
and give us a call at our offices in Mongolia." If you're a
geoengineering company, you're going to want official seals of approval
-- and to get those, you'll have to be responsible.

Some people will say this is another unwelcome layer of bureaucracy,
added just when climate change threats are urgent and time is running
short. But the Convention's scientists aren't knee-jerk critics of
anything commercial. They just want to make sure that geoengineering
really works. Companies like Planktos have already agreed, voluntarily,
to these sorts of rules. The Convention also said that it plans to
start seriously studying ocean fertilization -- and that research
should generate valuable knowledge.

When the water settles, critics and climate engineers will both be
better off.