Building Informed and Involved Communities for Responsible Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal – A Workshop Series
Program Areas – Responsible Innovation, Science and Technology Policy
Project Background:
The current tools and methods available for community engagement for responsible marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) at climate relevant scales are inadequate, underdeveloped, uneven and generally not fit for purpose. There is an urgent need to define the community engagement challenges in research and development of mCDR, map potential solution pathways and identify roles and responsibilities for public, private and not-profit stakeholders. We arrive at this conclusion based on (a) reports and actions by various scientific, governmental and industrial bodies associated or involved in accelerating research and development of mCDR science and technology, (b) current studies of ethical, legal and societal implications of climate intervention technologies in general and carbon dioxide removal in particular, (c) recent experiences of emerging challenges in informing and engaging communities in field experiments and demonstration projects involving CDR and relevant negative emission technologies, and (d) our combined experience in Participatory Technology Assessment (pTA), Public Engagement in Science (PES) and Science and Technology Studies (STS) in the areas of emerging and complex technologies in collaboration with various federal and philanthropic partners.
Project Objectives
The workshop series that will engage multi-sectoral actors involved in research, testing, development, and deployment of Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal (mCDR) with community engagement scholars and practitioners in relevant domains to help co-develop a roadmap for building informed and involved communities through engagement and information sharing. It will leverage past, current and planned projects, initiatives and coordination efforts at the local, regional and national levels to avoid redundancy and ensure the optimal use of knowledge and resources to ensure that the supply of and demand for usable and actionable science are effectively reconciled. The design and development of the workshops input, output and outcomes will be guided by a multi- sectoral advisory board representing principal drivers of mCDR science and technology in government, industry, non-government, philanthropic and academic organizations. The workshop will inform the current mCDR research, education and policy development, coordination and implementation activities undertaken by government, industry, non-government and academic organizations. It will help in the building of informed and engaged communities for responsible mCDR by mobilizing evidence-based resource allocation and capacity development activities.
Two workshops are envisioned over a twelve-month period. The first workshop will socialize state of the science on community building and define the challenges. The second workshop will identify opportunities and the solution pathways and map responsibility for each sectoral actor. The results and outcomes of the workshops, including recommendation for collective and coordinated actions will be synthesized in a final report and disseminated widely through different channels, formats and platforms accessible to target mCDR stakeholders in public, private, philanthropic and non-governmental organizations.
Funder
This workshop project is supported by a grant awarded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (# 2444461) through its Innovation and Technology Ecosystems (ITE) program within the Technology, Innovation, & Partnerships (TIP) Directorate.
Meet the Project Team
Principal Investigators
Additional Team Members
