Seventeen years ago, on this day, November 2, 2006, the New Scientist
MANY countries would love to bury the problem of rising carbon dioxide levels and forget about it. Soon they will be able to do just that, hiding CO2 away in caverns, aquifers and porous rocks beneath the seabed.
The London Convention governing burial of material in the sea was amended on 2 November, making it legal to bury CO2 in natural structures under the oceans. Twenty-nine countries ratified it, including the UK, China and Australia.
Anon (2006) R.I.P. CO2. New Scientist, November 18, Pg. 6
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 382ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was certain people and organsiations had been pushing for carbon sequestration technologies, carbon capture and storage.
Wth the storage, there had been early suggestions that you simply have the CO2 into the very deep oceans, and it will then liquefy and sink. That was maybe not such a good idea. The fallback came up of saline aquifers and so forth. But the law still needed to be changed at an international level. And this was the moment that that happened..
What I think we can learn from this is that if there are laws in the way they can be changed. I think it was Rockefeller, who said, “I paid lawyers to tell me how to get something done, not that it’s against the law” words to that effect. Laws are there not to protect the “environment” or poor people, they are there to put a nice gloss on what the rich are doing. And to chain the poor. They make the laws to chain us well.
What happened next
CCS did not happen next. Has not happened yet. Yet
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.