140th Edition
Funding in coastal resilience, green shipping, and mCDR
Hi everyone!
The US holiday weekend crept up on me last week. I am now drowning in ocean climate news, which is always a welcome problem to have.
Enjoy!
News
Norway is testing a snake-like autonomous underwater drone that can inspect and maintain subsea infrastructure with greater precision and lower cost than conventional remotely operated vehicles, highlighting the growing role of biomimetic robotics in offshore energy and maritime operations.
A new global assessment from Ocean Energy Europe concludes that wave and tidal energy could supply up to 13% of global electricity demand, positioning ocean energy as one of the world’s largest untapped renewable resources while calling for greater investment to accelerate commercial deployment.
Ahead of negotiations at the International Seabed Authority, Indigenous Peoples and more than 170 civil society organizations issued a joint call for a global moratorium on deep-sea mining, arguing that mining the ocean floor threatens biodiversity, Indigenous rights, and the shared heritage of the deep ocean before adequate scientific knowledge or governance safeguards are in place.
Addressing one of South Florida’s most pressing climate challenges, Sealor has secured $1.1 million to advance its seawall retrofit technology, which strengthens aging coastal infrastructure from below to reduce flooding, erosion, and saltwater intrusion without requiring costly wall replacements.
DRIFT Energy has partnered with Commenda Capital to finance a 50-vessel fleet of wind-powered hydrogen production ships, establishing a framework expected to unlock more than $500 million in investment for this new class of mobile clean energy infrastructure.
Backed by Horizon Europe, the new AWESOME project is bringing together 15 European partners to accelerate the adoption of wind-assisted ship propulsion by generating real-world performance data, standardized evaluation methods, and decision-support tools that reduce investment risk and help lower fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions across the shipping industry.
Governor Josh Green signed legislation establishing a new Office of Marine Affairs within the Hawaiʻi Technology Development Corporation to coordinate marine policy, foster ocean innovation, and strengthen the state's leadership in sustainable ocean-based economic development.
Direct ocean capture company Captura has raised a $12.5 million Series B to accelerate commercial deployment of its electrochemical carbon removal technology, advancing efforts to scale seawater-based CO₂ removal as a durable climate solution through new pilot projects and strategic partnerships.
Opportunities
Ocean Science Equity Initiative (EquiSea) is convening a cohort of scientific researchers to participate in their mCDR capacity-building side events attend attend the Ocean in a High-CO₂ World Symposium in New Zealand in October. Applications for the cohort close July 15th.
The Earthna Prize is a Qatar Foundation initiative that awards a $1 million pool to four winners for projects that use traditional knowledge and cultural heritage to address pressing environmental challenges across water, food, terrestrial, marine, and built-environment systems. Their applications for 2026 are open until July 20th.
The Offshore Wind Innovation Hub in New York has opened their 2026 call for innovators for their Innovator Program. Applications are open until July 27th.
The New York Climate Exchange has opened applications for their climate tech fellowship program. In this iteration, they are focused on “Early-Stage Innovators at the Intersection of Energy & Urban Resilience”. Applications close August 1st.
UC San Diego’s StartBlue Accelerator has opened applications for their immersive fall program.
The newest iteration of UCSC’s Blue Pioneer’s program has been announced, this year taking place as a two week immersion acceleration in Zanzibar. Check here for more details.
Canada’s first blue economy accelerator Blue Action Canada has opened applications for their 2026 cohort.
Apply to Katapult’s Ocean Accelerator program that is designed to guide founders through complex entrepreneurial issues, add structure, and help raise a startup’s next round.
Fair Carbon has launched a Blue Carbon Academy that aims to help with the fine-tuning of the design of a Blue Carbon project.
Join the Blue Growth Community to get access to opportunities, expertise, and connections as an innovator.
Events
The 7th World Conference for Marine Biodiversity will be taking place in Belgium 17-20 November 2026. You can register here.
Learning
Highlighting the growing role of citizen science in ocean research, this blog post from Dr. Dawn Wright of ESRI explores how crowdsourced observations, mobile mapping tools, and community-generated data are helping scientists fill critical knowledge gaps, expand marine monitoring, and accelerate ocean conservation at scales that would be impossible through traditional research alone.
Fair Carbon’s Blue Carbon Academy has launched their module on monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV).
Check out this new article in Ocean and Society entitled “Navigating Ethical Place-Based Research in Transdisciplinary Marine Science (and Beyond)”
In an interview discussing the future of direct ocean capture, Captura CEO Steve Oldham argues that removing CO₂ from seawater can offer a more scalable and lower-cost alternative to direct air capture by leveraging the ocean’s natural carbon cycle, while outlining the technological, commercial, and policy milestones needed to deploy the technology at climate-relevant scale.
Companies doing the work
Blue Ocean Closures is creating fiber-based packaging closures, replacing plastic closures, that are recyclable as paper.
Sealor is creating underground barrier walls by making use of microbiological precipitation in limestone to reduce and stop bottom up flooding to address South Florida’s flooding issues.