Coastal communities have toxicity concerns for carbon sequestration
Coastal communities have concerns about toxicity from adding bicarbonate to coastal waters
Details
Core information and root causes
Context
From our interview with Dr. Kimberly Gilbert of pHathom:
Community buy-in is incredibly important. And one of the important things about community buy-in is: it's not enough to tell them that it's safe, right? You have to demonstrate that you're trustworthy, that you're open, you're transparent.
So one of the things that we are actively doing is working with local communities and fisheries and we're also working with a company called Aquatic Labs, which built a cutting-edge sensor to measure these types of parameters (like total alkalinity and pCO2 [partial pressure of carbon dioxide] and pH in the ocean in real time. So we're working with them at each of our sites to deploy a web of sensors so that the dispersion can be measured with respect to time.
...The pushback is varied. There are people who have educated pushback, and then there are people who have maybe historical PTSD from other things. So if they experienced something like this in the past where a power plant or a smelting unit or something was put nearby and their communities were damaged, they're going to be very sensitive, right? And those are very reasonable responses based on their experience. There are ways in which we're learning to think about and, and talk about how to engage with communities. I think a really important thing is we can't go to communities and say, "Hey, we're doing this thing, we wanted to let you know" because they're like, "Wait a minute, it's our community!"
Engaging with them in a real human way is important... you don't go into a community and tell them what you're doing. You go in and have a bunch of tea with them and get to know them and build trust and transparency.
Efforts
Current initiatives and solutions
Groups working to address this bottleneck
Aquatic Labs: Aquatic Labs provides an end-to-end solution for aquatic monitoring needs, from instrumenting projects with our scalable tools to providing real-time data-driven insights.
Forecast
Future scenarios and predictions
Three potential futures for this bottleneck (community trust and social license for Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement) based on cultural dynamics, historical context, and the evolving role of real-time sensing and participatory governance.
Sensors Enable Trust Building
🟡 Shifts
A mesh of real-time sensors, deployed with community input and backed by transparent data dashboards, helps legitimize Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement (OAE) in select coastal regions. Trust is not universal, but localized legitimacy allows pilot growth.
WHAT CHANGES:
Community-facing monitoring tools (e.g., Aquatic Labs’ sensors) become standard practice. Trust shifts from “tell us it’s safe” to “show us, and let us see the data ourselves.”
WHY IT HAPPENS:
- Investment in community-led sensor deployment and data interpretation
- Transparency norms evolve in carbon removal permitting
- Collaboration with fisheries and Indigenous stewards becomes common practice
WHAT IT MEANS:
The bottleneck shifts. Trust is earned through tools and process, not rhetoric. OAE becomes viable in regions where community co-governance and monitoring is embedded.
WHEN:
- Early signs: 2025–2027
- Full effect: 2029–2034
LIKELIHOOD: MEDIUM
Technically feasible and culturally resonant, but hinges on early actors modeling participatory deployment with full transparency.
Cultural Endorsement Of OAE
🟢 Disappears
OAE becomes socially embedded and politically supported as part of broader ocean restoration and climate justice efforts. Community narratives shift from suspicion to stewardship.
WHAT CHANGES:
OAE deployment models co-led by coastal communities, NGOs, and Indigenous groups. Cultural legitimacy replaces tech-centric risk framing. Carbon finance includes local benefit-sharing.
WHY IT HAPPENS:
- Pilot successes in frontline climate regions
- Integration of Indigenous knowledge into MRV and governance
- Government and philanthropic funding link OAE to adaptation and sovereignty
WHAT IT MEANS:
The trust bottleneck disappears. OAE scales with community demand, not just tolerance. Deployment becomes a symbol of ecological and economic renewal.
WHEN:
- Early signs: 2026–2028
- Full effect: 2032–2036
LIKELIHOOD: LOW
Requires deep transformation in how climate tech is governed. Only likely if early exemplars emerge with measurable community co-benefits and narrative power.
Community Mistrust Halts OAE
đź”´ Multiplies
Early deployments fail to secure community legitimacy. Mistrust escalates due to poor communication, opaque data practices, and unresolved historical grievances.
WHAT CHANGES:
Public opposition and regulatory skepticism intensify. Activist campaigns highlight techno-colonialism and ecological uncertainty. Trust becomes unrepairable in high-conflict zones.
WHY IT HAPPENS:
- Top-down deployments with token consultation
- Technical MRV data not accessible or interpretable to locals
- Legacy trauma from industrial marine projects reactivates resistance
WHAT IT MEANS:
The bottleneck multiplies. Social license evaporates. OAE becomes restricted to remote or privately owned waters, with declining public support and increasing political risk.
WHEN:
- Early signs: 2024–2026
- Full effect: 2030–2035
LIKELIHOOD: MEDIUM
A likely path if early deployments don’t treat community trust as a first-order engineering challenge. The barrier will grow if initial projects ignore local sovereignty.
Cross Impact Analysis
- Sensor visibility and data transparency appear as a central trust mechanism across scenarios
- Co-governance and local narrative ownership are key differentiators between successful and failed trust pathways
- Look for early signs like: co-designed deployment agreements, local data dashboards, and integration with marine conservation plans
Bottleneck Resilience Evaluation
This bottleneck is socially plastic but reputationally brittle. It’s moveable where trust is pre-seeded and communities are part of the scientific process. But once broken, trust is hard to recover. It cannot be “scaled”—only replicated through slow, deliberate engagement. Solving it unlocks faster permitting and lowers long-term risk perception in ocean CDR.
Notes:
- “Disappears” = Scenario 2; “Shifts” = Scenario 1; “Multiplies” = Scenario 3
- Trust is not a PR problem—it’s a governance architecture problem. Community-led sensing is the most scalable antidote.