Deep Trouble The Risks of Offshore Carbon Capture and Storage

It codifies the requirements Such protections may also be found in regulations of the Convention on the Prevention of Marine surrounding the maintenance of fisheries, such as Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and of 1972, known as the London Convention, which Management Act in the US.263 The act requires con- is discussed further below. [...] When existing laws are interpreted, as they should be, to better duty to protect and preserve the protect communities, the environment, and the marine environment.” global climate, consistent with the precautionary principle and the rights of future generations, The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea they will operate to restrict deployment of CCS (UNCLOS) is the primary international legal frame. [...] work governing the ocean, to which 169 countries are Party, with the notable exception of the US.270 International Law It sets forth “a legal order for the seas and oceans,” defining the scope of States’ jurisdiction and control Because of the interconnected nature of the world’s over waters, and establishing permissible uses and oceans, activities at sea always have the potential to activities in. [...] International in the EEZ includes the “continental shelf,” the requirements and protections thus provide critical seabed and subsoil of the submarine areas beyond a benchmarks against which to assess the permissibil- country’s territorial sea to the outer edge of the con- ity of proposed CCS activities and the adequacy of tinental margin, or up to 200 nautical miles from the government safeguards. [...] and regulators to consider the myriad identified risks At present, the geological and biological dynamics of the deep sea remain largely unknown,345 casting and knowledge gaps — before doubt on our understanding of the consequences of more public funds are diverted injecting billions of tons of CO₂ under the seabed to offshore CCS and more in deep waters, or of the damage that a CO₂ rupture or lea.