内容摘要：Chelsea’s head coach Enzo Maresca smiles after winning the Europa Conference League final soccer match between Real Betis and Chelsea in Wroclaw, Poland, Wednesday, May 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

Chelsea’s head coach Enzo Maresca smiles after winning the Europa Conference League final soccer match between Real Betis and Chelsea in Wroclaw, Poland, Wednesday, May 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

Money has poured into different strategies on land — among them, pumping carbon dioxide from the air, developing sites to store carbon underground and replanting forests, which naturally store CO2. But many of those projects are limited by space and could impact nearby communities.The ocean already regulates Earth’s climate by absorbing heat and carbon, and by comparison, it seems limitless.

“Is that huge surface area an option to help us deal with and mitigate the worst effects of climate change?” asked Adam Subhas, who is leading an ocean carbon project with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, based on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.Most companies looking offshore for climate solutions are trying to reduce or transform the carbon dioxide stored in the ocean. If they can achieve that, said Will Burt, chief ocean scientist for the company Planetary Technologies, the oceans will act “like a vacuum” to absorb more gases from the air.Planetary uses magnesium oxide to create that vacuum. When dissolved into seawater, it transforms carbon dioxide from a gas to stable molecules that won’t interact with the atmosphere for thousands of years. Limestone, olivine and other alkaline rocks have the same effect.

Other companies are focused on growing seaweed and algae. These marine organisms act like plants on land, absorbing carbon dioxide from the ocean just as trees do from the air.Still others view the deepest parts of the ocean as a place to store organic material that would emit greenhouse gases if left on land.

Most of the ocean startups are selling carbon credits — or tokens representing one metric ton of carbon dioxide removed from the air. Largely unregulated and widely debated, carbon credits have become popular this century as a way for companies to purchase offsets rather than reduce emissions themselves.

The industry sold more than 340,000 marine carbon credits last year, up from 2,000 credits four years ago, according to the tracking site CDR.fyi. But that amount of carbon removal is a tiny fraction of what scientists say will be required to keep the planet livable for centuries to come.Whether it’s pollution or a silver bullet that will save the planet may depend on whom you ask.

From shore, a pipe releases a mixture of water and magnesium oxide — a powdery white mineral used in everything from construction to heartburn pills that Planetary Technologies, based in Nova Scotia, is betting will absorb more planet-warming gases into the sea.“Restore the climate. Heal the ocean,” reads the motto stamped on a shipping container nearby.

A growing industry is racing to engineer a solution to global warming using the absorbent power of the oceans. (AP Production/ Serginho Roosblad)Planetary is part of a growing industry racing to engineer a solution to global warming using the absorbent power of the oceans. It is backed by $1 million from