Kiel Working Papers, Kiel Institute for World Economics
No 1574:
Ocean iron fertilization: Why further research is needed
Kerstin Güssow, Alexander Proelss, Andreas Oschlies, Katrin Rehdanz and Wilfried Rickels
Abstract: Despite large uncertainties in the fertilization
efficiency, natural iron fertilization studies and some of the purposeful
iron enrichment studies have demonstrated that Southern Ocean iron
fertilization can lead to a significant export of carbon from the sea
surface to the ocean interior. From an economic perspective the potential
of OIF is far from negligible in relation to other abatement options.
Comparing the range of cost estimates to the range of estimates for
forestation projects they are in the same order of magnitude, but OIF could
provide more carbon credits even if high discount rates are used to account
for potential leakage and non-permanence. However, the uncertainty about
undesired adverse effects of purposeful iron fertilization on marine
ecosystems and biogeochemistry has led to attempts to ban commercial and,
to some extent, scientific experiments aimed at a better understanding of
the processes involved, effectively precluding further consideration of
this mitigation option. As regards the perspective of public international
law, the pertinent agreements dealing with the protection of the marine
environment indicate that OIF is to be considered as lawful if and to the
extent to which it represents legitimate scientific research. In this
respect, the precautionary principle can be used to balance the risks
arising out of scientific OIF activities for the marine environment with
the potential advantages relevant to the objectives of the climate change
regime. As scientific OIF experiments involve only comparatively small
negative impacts within a limited marine area, further scientific research
must be permitted to explore the carbon sequestration potential of OIF in
order to either reject this concept or integrate it into the flexible
mechanisms contained in the Kyoto Protocol
Keywords: climate change, geoengineering, ocean iron fertilization, international carbon market, public, international law, precautionary principle; (follow links to similar papers)
JEL-Codes: K33,; Q51,; Q54,; Q56; (follow links to similar papers)
24 pages, December 2009
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