Lifeboat Foundation

UCLA spinout Equatic has developed a carbon removal technology it believes can help the world meet its climate change goals — by converting CO₂ in the ocean into seashell dust.

The challenge: To prevent the worst predicted effects of climate change, experts say we need to not only slash our carbon emissions, but also remove and permanently store some of the CO₂ that’s already been released.

The ocean does this naturally: it already absorbs about 31% of human-made carbon emissions, but there’s a limit to the amount of CO₂ that seawater can absorb before it starts to release the carbon back into the atmosphere. Absorbing CO₂ from the air also causes ocean acidification, resulting in further environmental damage.