An Associated Press analysis of an

Magalí Maisonnave poses for a photo with her six-year-old dachshund Sandro, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)People watch as Marine One, with President Donald Trump aboard, departs the White House en route to Trump National Golf Club Washington DC for a crypto dinner, Thursday, May 22, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

People watch as Marine One, with President Donald Trump aboard, departs the White House en route to Trump National Golf Club Washington DC for a crypto dinner, Thursday, May 22, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)Nicholas Valentin holds onto a one-day-old foal outside of its stall at a farm that is home to a program that offers addicts a chance to care for animals with the goal of landing a job related to the racing industry and putting themselves on a new path, in Nicholasville, Ky., on Tuesday, May 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)Nicholas Valentin holds onto a one-day-old foal outside of its stall at a farm that is home to a program that offers addicts a chance to care for animals with the goal of landing a job related to the racing industry and putting themselves on a new path, in Nicholasville, Ky., on Tuesday, May 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)

Children cool themselves by a fountain at Muzeon park in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Pavel Bednyakov)Children cool themselves by a fountain at Muzeon park in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Pavel Bednyakov)

Municipal workers remove the cover that protected a monument of Kyiv legendary founders from Russian missile attacks on the fourth year of Russia-Ukraine war on the country’s main square in Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, May 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)(

Municipal workers remove the cover that protected a monument of Kyiv legendary founders from Russian missile attacks on the fourth year of Russia-Ukraine war on the country’s main square in Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, May 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)(HALIFAX, Nova Scotia (AP) — A growing industry is racing to engineer a solution to global warming using the absorbent power of the oceans.

Dozens of companies and academic groups are pitching the same theory: that sinking rocks, nutrients, crop waste or seaweed in the ocean could lock away climate-warming carbon dioxide for centuries or more. Nearly 50 field trials have taken place in the past four years, with startups raising hundreds of millions in early funds.But the field remains rife with debate over the consequences for the oceans if the strategies are deployed at large scale, and over the exact benefits for the climate. Critics say the efforts are moving too quickly and with too few guardrails.

Here are takeaways fromon companies seeking to harness the world’s oceans to capture carbon.