Climate change mitigation activities in the ocean: turning up the regulatory heat

The adverse impacts of anthropogenically induced climate change on the terrestrial and marine environments have been acknowledged by a succession of expert reports commissioned by global and national bodies (IPCC 2007; Preston and Jones 2006; Stern et al. 2006). The threats posed by climate change to the global environment have fostered heightened scientific and commercial interest in a range of CO2 sequestration methods that either involve the ocean or affect the marine environment. The most developed proposals to date relate to offshore carbon capture and storage (OCCS), which seeks to capture carbon dioxide from point sources of emissions and sequester it in sub-seabed geological formations.