Is mCDR pollution? Rethinking pollution for the governance of marine carbon dioxide removal
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21254291 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lina Roeschel (0000-0003-1564-0062, GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 29 |
| Pages | 100341 |
| Publication date | 2026-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Earth System Governance (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2589-8116 • E-ISSN: 2589-8116 |
| Publisher | Elsevier BV (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1016/j.esg.2026.100341 |
| OpenAlex | W7165145982 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 24 |
Marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) is increasingly explored as component within the global response to climate change, yet its governance remains fragmented and conceptually unsettled. The London Convention and Protocol (LC/LP) provides a primary institutional home for the international governance of mCDR by regulating certain marine interventions as forms of potential pollution. While this classification is often treated as a technical or legal question, this Perspective argues that how mCDR is understood as pollution has important implications for governance. First, it argues that classifying mCDR as pollution provides an institutional anchor for precautionary oversight within LC/LP. Second, it shows that prevailing technocratic understandings of pollution are insufficient for governing mCDR. Third, it explains why recurring calls for more comprehensive and integrative governance of mCDR can be understood as responses to this conceptual mismatch. Drawing on relational conceptions of pollution, the paper reframes pollution as an activity that reconfigures social-ecological relations. In doing so, it provides a conceptual lens for interpreting ongoing developments in mCDR governance without requiring a departure from existing institutional frameworks
Conceptual framework · Convention · Convention on Biological Diversity · Corporate governance · Environmental governance · Governmentality · Technocracy · Climate Change and Geoengineering · Climate Change Policy and Economics · Ocean Acidification Effects and Responses · Pollution
Environmental governance
From environmental governance to governance for sustainability
Potential impacts of marine carbon dioxide removal on ocean oxygen
A holistic assessment framework for marine carbon dioxide removal options
Towards system-aware governance of marine carbon dioxide removal
Thinking at the megaton scale
Decision making in contexts of deep uncertainty - An alternative approach for long-term climate policy
Arguments and architectures
The rise, fall and rebirth of ocean carbon sequestration as a climate 'solution
Global plastic pollution, sustainable development, and plastic justice
Earth system interventions as technologies of the Anthropocene
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |