Authored by Giulia Belotti, Research Fellow at the Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal and Sara Nawaz, Director of Research at the Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal
Marine carbon dioxide removal is moving from the lab into the world. Now, the enterprise is no longer an abstraction, but is becoming real for the communities where field tests are being conducted and larger deployments are being planned. Against this backdrop, the need for meaningful, robust, and replicable mechanisms for community engagement and input are becoming more pressing and urgent.
We report here on a recent set of workshops that we designed and hosted in Sequim, in Washington State. We describe an innovative approach to engaging community members in (m)CDR, designed to showcase best practices for future engagement efforts. Additionally, we outline the key questions and actionable insights that emerged from the meetings. Most notably, community members expressed a strong willingness to learn more about the technology and its implications for development in the region. However, they also raised significant concerns and reservations across various aspects of (m)CDR, including but not limited to social, ecological, and political dimensions. These concerns underscore the importance of engaging local communities in ongoing (m)CDR research and future deployment efforts.
Our team at the Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal is leading on other community engagement efforts in Washington State and elsewhere. We welcome feedback on our process and findings. Please be in touch with Sara Nawaz [snawaz@american.edu] and Giulia Belotti [gbelotti@mail.ubc.ca] with any feedback.
The Setting
Located on the northern edge of Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula, Port Angeles is nestled between the Pacific Ocean and the wilderness of Olympic National Park. Home to about 20,000 residents, it is the largest town on the Peninsula.
In this unique setting, California startup Ebb Carbon is proposing “Project Macoma.” Project Macoma will use ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE), a marine carbon dioxide removal (m)CDR) process, to draw CO2 from the atmosphere. OAE involves adding alkalinity to the ocean, which triggers chemical reactions that convert dissolved CO2 into bicarbonate and carbonate molecules, ultimately allowing the ocean to absorb more CO2 from the atmosphere. Alkalinity can be added either by spreading ground minerals like olivine or lime into the ocean, or through an electrochemical process that splits seawater into acidic and alkaline streams. Project Macoma will use the latter method. Seawater will be pumped into a series of tanks, treated to become less acidic, and then returned to the ocean, where it will combine with CO2 to form bicarbonate.
This isn’t Ebb Carbon’s first project in the region. The startup is already testing the technology at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in nearby Sequim, though on a smaller and more contained scale. Partnering with the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, PNNL, and the University of Washington, Ebb Carbon is drawing water from Sequim Bay, splitting it into acidic and alkaline streams, and using most of it for further experiments before releasing it back into the Bay. Project Macoma aims to take this process a step further, by testing the process at a larger scale.
Community engagement: the missing piece of CDR research
Interest in novel mCDR approaches like OAE is rapidly growing among the scientific community and policymakers. However, so far focus has largely been on technical feasibility and natural science aspects of the technology, with community engagement sidelined or delayed.
Yet, social engagement is essential at every stage of a CDR initiative, especially since this field is still emerging. Involving communities early on should not be aimed at gaining public buy-in – it is a vital step toward ensuring equity and justice. Understanding who stands to benefit and who might be adversely affected by mCDR must be a primary goal of any engagement effort. Moreover, a well-informed community is better equipped to make decisions about how, or even if, CDR technologies should be implemented in their region. Ultimately, this approach shifts the process from being a top-down imposition to one where communities actively co-produce knowledge and help shape the development of these technologies. This can help engender community support for projects and often contributes to more thoughtful design.
In other words, meaningful social engagement goes beyond simply presenting a project to the public and asking for feedback. For mCDR initiatives, engagement must fully capture the complexity of the technology and ensure that community concerns and priorities are genuinely integrated into its development. Even well-meaning stakeholders can struggle with how to achieve this.
Recognizing this challenge, our research team at the Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal at American University is committed to fostering more participatory and deliberative approaches in (m)CDR research. As part of this broader commitment, we organized two engagement workshops in the Sequim region. These workshops aimed to showcase best practices for initiating meaningful community engagement on mCDR, with a particular focus on OAE. Dr. Sara Nawaz, the Institute’s Director of Research, received funding for this research from ClimateWorks Foundation.
What did we do?
On June 4 and 5, 2024, we hosted two day-long community engagement workshops on mCDR in Sequim, Washington. With the trial projects discussed above on the horizon, this region could become a significant site for large-scale OAE deployment in the future, by Ebb and other companies looking to leverage the favorable local environmental conditions. Engaging communities at this early stage is essential to ensuring that local voices are heard and considered.
Over the course of these two days, 38 participants representing a diverse range of affiliations joined the workshops. Attendees included staff from environmental non-governmental organizations, Tribes, recreational groups, shellfish farms, marine resource management committees, local government, and educational institutions.
The workshops began with a foundational introduction to CDR, aimed at helping participants become more familiar with the existing landscape of these technologies. Following this, we introduced information about OAE, offering insights into the current state and potential of this particular approach. After each presentation, we made sure to give participants plenty of time to ask questions, share their curiosities, and voice any comments. We also encouraged them to share the first things that came to mind – whether images, thoughts, or associations – when thinking about CDR and OAE. A colleague from Ocean Networks Canada, Dr. Kohen Bauer, served as the technical expert for the workshops, providing detailed information on mCDR and OAE and answering participants’ numerous questions.
Throughout the discussions, we maintained transparency about the state of knowledge of OAE, including its potential unintended consequences and broader implications. Importantly, we were clear about our role as independent researchers, emphasizing that this work is not being conducted on behalf of Ebb Carbon or any other CDR company.
Following the presentations, participants were guided through two interactive activities designed to deepen their understanding of the complexities associated with OAE. The first was a “best-case and worst-case scenario” exercise, where participants were prompted to write down their hopes and concerns about OAE deployment in the region. Using sticky notes, they captured their thoughts, ranging from environmental benefits to potential social impacts, which were then shared and discussed collectively.
The second activity was a scenario-based exercise that divided participants into four groups. Each group was assigned a unique scenario, presenting different contexts for OAE deployment, including variations in political climate, climate change status, governance and funding structures, and potential ecosystem and community impacts. Groups rotated to explore all scenarios, discussing the elements they found most promising, the challenges they foresaw, and how realistic they considered each scenario. This dynamic process allowed participants, many of whom were new to OAE and, more in general, CDR technologies, to engage critically with the issues, fostering informed opinions and preferences about the future of these technologies.
What did we find?
Our initial observations from the workshops reveal that participants are generally open to learning more about (m)CDR and are eager to be involved from the early stages. However, while participants appreciated the information shared, many expressed a need to better visualize the scale of mCDR efforts to fully grasp how much CO2 removal is required to meet climate goals and what this entails in practice. For instance, many confessed that it was difficult for them to picture how their region would look if mCDR were implemented on a large scale. Therefore, they suggested the incorporation of slides that visually demonstrate such impacts in future presentations, or using metaphors to better convey specific quantities. This aspect was especially crucial for participants, especially when it came to understanding the operational chain of OAE. Concerns were raised regarding the potential creation of a new industry, as well as the amount of resources extracted, energy consumed, and emissions associated with these efforts.
How mCDR is implemented emerged as a key concern. Participants stressed the importance of involving communities throughout the process and showed a clear preference for government- and community-owned projects. There was significant skepticism about private corporations, particularly those connected to the fossil fuel industry, due to fears that these entities might use carbon removal technologies as a way to avoid more ambitious emissions reductions. Linked to this, the status of climate change mitigation emerged as a crucial consideration. Participants emphasized that mitigation efforts should be prioritized, viewing mCDR as a complementary component within a broader array of solutions. Discussions frequently centered on the potential trade-offs that communities would inevitably have to face in a future characterized by climate change. There was a strong recognition that decisions about what can be sacrificed or justified in the context of climate action will likely evolve as the crisis progresses.
Participants also highlighted the necessity for a transparent and open Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) process, ideally managed by an independent entity, but potentially supported by local groups of citizen scientists. This underscores the importance of keeping communities actively involved as these technologies are scaled up, ensuring that their evolving concerns and insights are integrated throughout the process.
Moving CDR research and development towards more participation and deliberation
The workshops conducted in Sequim mark an important first step in establishing best practices for community engagement in mCDR research and development. More importantly, they represent the beginning of what we hope will be an ongoing relationship and collaboration with the local community. As OAE technology progresses from trial phases to larger-scale deployment, our goal as a research Institute is to continue deepening this engagement, fostering not only broader participation but also moving towards meaningful deliberation.