The urgency and scale required to address residual and historical emissions has spurred investigation into every tool at our disposal. This brings us to the vast, and largely untapped, potential of the world’s largest carbon sink: the ocean.
As many stakeholders have been saying for years, the ocean is not just a backdrop to the climate crisis, it may be one of our most powerful tools for solving it.
Ottawa is starting to agree. In February 2026, the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans (POFO) released Carbon Removal: From Air to Sea, one of the most comprehensive government reviews of marine carbon removal conducted anywhere in the world.
The Ocean Has Already Been Doing This
The ocean is already the planet’s greatest carbon sink, absorbing roughly 30% of all CO2 emissions. But 200 years of industrial activity have taken a toll. Ocean acidification has damaged marine ecosystems and, critically, reduced the ocean’s natural capacity to pull carbon from the air. Ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) works by restoring what we have eroded: by adding alkaline minerals like crushed limestone to rivers and harbours, we can rebalance ocean acidity and revive its natural carbon removal potential.
Atlantic Canadians have been liming rivers for decades to reverse the effects of acid rain and bring back Atlantic salmon populations. Canadian company CarbonRun grew directly out of that practice, taking a well-understood ecological restoration technique and applying it at a new scale, for a new purpose. What once saved a river can now help cool a planet.
A Historic Step Forward
To our knowledge, POFO’s review is among the first times a national parliamentary government body has conducted a comprehensive examination of marine carbon removal, spanning regulatory frameworks, national climate strategy, and research policy. The committee drew on testimony from over 35 witnesses, covering technology developers, academic scientists, legal experts, Indigenous community members, and government officials. It examined the full landscape: the science, the risks, the regulatory gaps, the economic opportunity, and the path forward.
Critically, the committee attached concrete timelines to each of its nine recommendations, with a majority recommended for completion by the end of 2026 and 2027. This shows that the senators understand the urgency and are urging the Government of Canada to act now, not eventually.
Perhaps equally significant is who is making these recommendations. The POFO committee is composed of senators from across the political spectrum. It reflects an emerging consensus across political lines that carbon removal can represent something for everyone: a climate imperative, an economic opportunity, or a chance for Canada to define global best practices in an industry that is just getting started.
Canada is Exceptionally Well-Positioned
A July 2025 report prepared by RMI for Canada’s Ocean Supercluster found that Canada has the longest coastline of any country in the world, abundant alkaline mineral resources, a growing clean energy sector, and a robust marine research community. British Columbia and Nova Scotia alone account for over 38,000 kilometres of coastline, and both provinces are already home to operating marine carbon removal companies and pilot projects.
 The report from Canada’s Ocean Supercluster found that:
- Canada’s marine carbon removal potential could reach 90–170 megatonnes of CO2 per year by 2050, representing roughly one sixth of Canada’s current total annual emissions.
- Canada’s mineral resources, needed for OAE, are particularly significant and the country could for a large amount of these carbon removal methods, globally, by 2050
- A scaled marine carbon removal industry could support up to 100,000 jobs, contribute $7–20 billion annually to Canada’s GDP, and generate over $100 million in federal and provincial tax revenues. To put that in perspective, this is comparable in scale to Canada’s entire electricity utility sector.
- A scaled marine CDR industry could represent up to 9% of Nova Scotia’s current GDP.
Moving Forward with Intention
The POFO report’s nine recommendations form a strong foundation. Three areas are most critical in the near term.
- Regulatory clarity, now. The government should immediately release a statement confirming that land-based ocean alkalinity enhancement projects are regulated under existing domestic legislation, not international law. This mirrors a similar declaration from the US Environmental Protection Agency and would give Canadian companies the certainty they need to plan and scale. Beyond that, a sector-specific regulatory sandbox should streamline the application process, bringing all relevant federal regulators into one coordinated process.
- A national research and deployment strategy. Carbon Removal Canada’s Executive Director Na’im Merchant testified before the committee that repeated calls for “more research” create perpetual delay when no one defines what that research actually needs to answer. The government should establish a federally led research roadmap with specific milestones, defined timelines, and clear success criteria.
- Genuine community engagement. Social licence is not a checkbox. CarbonRun’s Edmund Halfyard put it plainly before the committee: social licence will become the limiting factor on how marine carbon removal projects can scale. The POFO report recommends a two-tiered consultation model, broad public education paired with project-specific engagement. We need to actively seek out voices that are not yet at the table.
Uncertainty is Not an Excuse for Inaction
The ocean is a complex system, and the potential for unintended consequences is real. More research is needed to understand how ocean alkalinity enhancement affects marine ecosystems over the short, medium, and long term, including how much carbon is stored, where it goes, and how long it stays.
But this uncertainty must be weighed against what we know with far greater confidence: that climate inaction carries catastrophic consequences. The POFO report puts it well. Canada should be bold and ambitious in its goal-setting on marine carbon dioxide removal, but measured and thoughtful in its execution.
That means designing research programs that are strategic rather than open-ended, running projects at small and medium scale to generate real-world data, and ensuring that independent science runs in parallel with industry deployment so that course corrections are possible and accountability is built in from the start.
The Window is Open, But Not Forever
The POFO report is an invitation to act. It tells us that senators from across the political spectrum have looked at this issue carefully and concluded that Canada has both the capacity and the obligation to lead. The economic analysis from RMI and Canada’s Ocean Supercluster tells us the prize is real. And Canadian innovators, already delivering verified credits to global buyers, are showing us that the technology is ready for a growing role in the climate and economic conversation.
