Thank you very much.
I have the privilege of being the president and CEO of Ocean Networks Canada, an operator of world-leading ocean observatories. I am an ocean engineer and have over 30 years of experience in ocean science and technology.
ONC systems host over 12,000 sensors that monitor the west and east coasts of Canada and the Arctic for many benefits, such as research, societal, etc. Our ONC infrastructure studies all aspects of the ocean, but it is now positioned to advance research in a wide range of technologies for ocean-based carbon dioxide removal, which I'll refer to today as negative emissions technologies, or NETs.
You all know well that for us to sustain human life, rapid and aggressive reductions in atmospheric CO2 are urgently needed, but the top conclusion of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2019 was that NETs must also be implemented, especially if CO2 emission reduction goals are not reached. Recently, IEA identified the need for widespread NET deployment as early as 2038.
NETs have been under-explored to date. The international consensus that NETs are imperative reinforces the urgency to move forward now so that integrated systems can be deployed globally in the next decade. Because the ocean covers 70% of the earth's surface and has already marshalled its natural processes to remove more than 30% of human-caused GHGs, it holds potential for enhanced uptake of even greater removal of CO2 from the atmosphere. This could potentially total more than five gigatonnes per year if investments are made now for advancing the research needed for these mitigation solutions.
With increases in the price of carbon, these ocean-based carbon dioxide removal technologies have good potential to generate income and advance our blue economy, not only with credit revenue, but also through technology export, as you've heard from the first speaker. The IEA forecasts that the carbon removal market will exceed $1 trillion by mid-century.
ONC infrastructure is ideally positioned to support the wide range of ocean-based carbon dioxide removal research areas that span six different solutions. In addition to ocean water-based NETs, Ocean Networks Canada is leading a project called Solid Carbon, which is a climate mitigation strategy that can provide safe and secure CO2 capture from the atmosphere and sequestration that can be scaled to have significant impact in the time frame needed. It combines six existing technologies and is based on the fact that ocean basalt reacts with carbon dioxide injected into rock pore spaces to form solid carbonate minerals at greatly accelerated rates. Basalt abundance in the ocean creates the potential for substantial storage capacities. Solid Carbon thus has potential to sequester 20-plus gigatonnes per year of CO2, which is up to half of what needs to be removed from the atmosphere.
Thank you.