Introduction to the Symposium on ‘Geoengineering: Governing Solar Radiation Management'

Introduction

The term solar radiation management (SRM) describes a set of speculative technologies that might help humanity respond to climate change. SRM technologies would operate, if ever developed and deployed at scale, by reflecting a small amount of solar energy back into space before that energy warms the planet.

For at least a decade, SRM has been grouped together under the umbrella of climate engineering or geoengineering with a second suite of climate change response options, referred to as carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies, with geoengineering typically defined as the ‘deliberate large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment to counteract anthropogenic climate change’ Shepherd (2009, p. 1). This loose alignment between SRM and CDR approaches is, though, changing. Article 4(1) of the Paris Agreement calls for a balancing of ‘anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases’ by the latter half of the century. Those interested in the development of carbon dioxide removal technologies have picked up on the Paris Agreement’s highlighting of sinks to suggest that CDR should more properly be seen as part of the climate change mitigation agenda, preferring to leave the controversial climate engineering label to apply solely to SRM (De Coninck 2018). We support this drawing of a sharper line between proposed SRM and CDR activities, largely because the governance and other challenges associated with SRM tend to be markedly different from those associated with CDR, and in the following we focus strictly on SRM technologies.

SRM as an enterprise could, conceivably, offer great benefits, but the risks to the environment, human wellbeing, and international order are not yet fully understood. For these and other reasons, any talk of SRM is contentious. In fact, SRM was long excluded from any serious discussion of climate change politics because many see it as generating a moral hazard. These voices argue that any consideration of SRM draws attention or could draw attention away from efforts to actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions, by offering responses that would ultimately simply mask the physical impacts of climate change or otherwise operate to distract from mitigation and adaptation efforts (Hale 2012).

This long-standing opposition to SRM has, though, softened, or at least is now being counterbalanced by voices calling for development of a research agenda. Proponents of investigation into SRM technologies argue that the international community is unlikely to achieve its political goal of maintaining a maximum 2°C increase in global average surface temperature through traditional mitigation (reducing emissions) alone (Anderson and Bows 2008). Rather, they assert that SRM may play a useful role as one small part of a portfolio of responses to climate change by buying time for mitigation and, potentially, for large-scale carbon dioxide removal efforts to be developed and take hold. Proponents also advocate for continued research, including, in some cases, near-term small-scale deployment or field-testing (see, for a discussion, Nicholson et al. 2018).

This argument was further strengthened by the 2015 Paris Agreement to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that increased the level of ambition by adopting a new goal to keep global temperature increases well below 2°C, and if possible to keep them below 1.5°C. This is particularly poignant in light of recent analyses of parties’ emission reduction pledges, or nationally determined contributions (NDCs), which, assuming full implementation of current NDCs, demonstrate a median warming of 2.6–3.1°C (Roglj et al. 2016). Given the SRM-relevant implications of these findings, there is a particular need to amplify conversations concerned with governance pathways to shape SRM research and, potentially, deployment.

Despite being sidelined from mainstream climate discussions for many years, international attention to SRM has been increasing over the past couple of years. For example, in 2016 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) explicitly called for further investigation into how climate engineering technologies, including SRM, might contribute to meeting the Paris Agreement’s ambitious temperature targets (IPCC 2016). The IPCC has further included a discussion of SRM technologies in its ‘Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C’ (2018), noting, in the report’s Summary for Policymakers, that while SRM approaches may theoretically have a role to play in responding to climate change, there remain a host of important unanswered questions related to governance, ethics, and interactions with the sustainable development goals. Non-state actor attention has also gained momentum, with several new organizations emerging in recent years to discuss SRM governance, such as the Carnegie Climate Geoengineering Governance Initiative (C2G2) and the Forum for Climate Engineering Assessment (FCEA).

The increased attention to SRM technologies and their implications can in part be explained by the ‘ambition gap’ that exists between international temperature targets and current emissions reductions pledges. It is also likely a result of the Paris Agreement’s call for a balance between anthropogenic emissions and sinks in the second half of this century. This call for carbon neutrality, or ‘net zero’ emissions, has been interpreted by some as an implicit endorsement of carbon dioxide removal technologies (Burns and Nicholson 2017). However, because removing carbon from the atmosphere and storing it underground is currently a costly and uncertain proposition, the Paris Agreement’s temperature targets also point to greater consideration of SRM technologies.

What is SRM and why should it be governed?

SRM technologies aim to reduce the amount of sunlight absorbed by the earth’s atmosphere by scattering incoming sunlight and/or increasing the earth’s albedo (reflectivity). Increasing planetary albedo—the Earth’s reflectivity—at any altitude from ground level to points above the atmosphere can generate a cooling effect. The most-discussed proposal, and the one to which the authors collected in this Symposium pay most attention, is stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI). SAI would use high altitude aircraft, tethered balloons, or some other delivery system to inject reflective particles, such as sulfates, into the stratosphere. The reflective particles would reflect and scatter incoming sunlight, decreasing the amount of solar radiation that ultimately is captured by atmospheric greenhouse gases.

At the same time, and emblematic of the array of challenges surrounding SRM, SAI would not markedly decrease the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere, except via spurring some limited potential increases in plant growth. Therefore, suppression or avoidance of climate change-related impacts could only be maintained if the technology were to be used indefinitely and coupled with aggressive mitigation measures, or at least utilized for long enough that technologies and practices that actually reduce atmospheric CO₂ levels could be developed and deployed. If SAI stopped suddenly without corresponding measures to decrease CO₂ emissions, the impact of increased solar radiation could be sudden and dramatic. This is known as the ‘termination shock.’¹

As we have argued elsewhere, although climate engineering may emerge as a part of a broader global effort to address climate change, the risks associated with SRM—termination shock and the moral hazard among them—are important enough that they themselves demand governance (see e.g., Jinnah 2018). Various potential methods for achieving SRM, and SAI in particular, have the potential to lower the global atmospheric temperature quickly and cheaply, when compared to the direct costs associated with mitigation (Blackstock and Long 2010). Yet, uncertainties and risks are substantial. Some are concerned that SAI could, for example: have differential and in some cases deleterious impacts on regional temperatures (Hulme 2014); disrupt rainfall patterns, thus threatening food security Robock et al. (2008), Gupta (2010); speed up ozone layer depletion (depending on the reflective particle utilized in an SAI deployment) (Keith et al. 2016); have potentially negative impacts on terrestrial and oceanic biodiversity (McCormack et al. 2016); exhibit downside risks associated with commercial control of the technologies Blackstock and Long (2010), Robock (2014); and even be used as a weapon of war (Dalby 2013).

These potential risks, alongside the dire modeling projections for climate impacts absent utilization of SRM technologies, insufficiency of current pledges under the Paris Agreement for emission reductions, and planned small-scale SAI field-testing in the United States (Dykema et al. 2014), suggest that the time is ripe for deep, sustained investigation into appropriate means of governing these emerging technologies. To date, at the international level, a handful of formal governance steps have been taken, most notably under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the London Convention/Protocol. A decision taken by the parties to the CBD in 2010 on geoengineering asks CBD parties to consider banning geoengineering activities that impact biodiversity until the science is clearer (CBD Decision X/33). Similarly, in 2013 the London Convention/Protocol adopted an amendment to regulate marine geoengineering activities, except under certain circumstances, such as for strictly defined scientific research sanctioned by permit. Some have also argued that the Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques (ENMOD) limits the large-scale deployment of SRM technologies in its requirement that environmental modification techniques not be used for military or hostile use (ENMOD Article II). These mechanisms remain weak and imprecise, however, and are woefully inadequate to handle the suite of challenges described above. Additional governance is necessary.

How to govern climate engineering?

SRM presents several puzzles for thinking about governance. On the one hand, it is impossible yet even to know if SRM technologies could ever be developed and/or scaled up to address climate change in a meaningful way. Even should SRM technologies be developed, there is no good way yet to know precisely what form those technologies might take, how and by whom they might be developed, and all of the ways in which they might interact with other aspects of climate policy and response. So, those considering governance options are, in some ways, stumbling around in the dark, or put more generously, looking to govern, in an anticipatory fashion, an emerging set of technologies that are in no sense fully formed. On the other hand, given the massive risks posed by these technologies, if research and development get too far ahead of thinking on governance, decision-makers could find themselves dangerously ill-equipped to address some or all of the concerns we lay out above.

Another puzzle in considering climate engineering governance is the idea that governance itself may help to create a ‘slippery slope’ to deployment. Based on this rationale, some have argued that governance of SRM should not be discussed until it is known that the world wants to develop these relevant technologies. To begin a governance conversation too early is, by this view, providing unwarranted legitimacy to a risky set of ideas (Quaas et al. 2017). Although we are sympathetic to this view (and some of the other contributors to this Symposium may well hold it firmly), we ultimately take the position that even if early efforts at governance are imperfect, the potential speed at which SRM technologies could be developed and the risks posed by unguided deployment could be so great that a baseline level of governance must be in place before the world finds itself in a situation of needing governance to manage SRM technologies but not having it.

Starting from the assumption that governance is needed, there are a host of questions surrounding how governance should be approached and designed. Some of the central questions for SRM governance are related to: identifying the appropriate institutional homes for governance arrangements; designing institutional mechanisms; identifying globally shared objectives for use (or not) of these technologies; ensuring meaningful participation of potentially impacted present and future people; avoiding technological lock-in; enabling socially responsible research (or developing mechanisms to halt or ban research that does not cross the ‘socially responsible’ bar); protecting the technologies from commercial or rogue/malign actor control; setting criteria for funding of research; linking national and sub-national level policies to existing international frameworks; ensuring international transparency of ongoing research; bolstering cross-border communication and collaboration; developing liability protections for those who might be harmed by SRM research or deployment; possibly developing moratoria on certain types (or all) of research and/or deployment; and critically, developing mechanisms to ensure that climate engineering is never, under any circumstances, used as an alternative to aggressive greenhouse gas mitigation.

To be sure, alongside several other academics and groups we have begun to unpack many of these issues. Jinnah (2018) has argued elsewhere that, recognizing that early governance steps will entail some stumbling, one way to stumble more safely is to build governance mechanisms using a demand-based framework that identifies governance rationales and builds governance architectures on the basis of theoretical understandings of the conditions under which particular governance forms work or are most appropriate. This approach is a departure from more traditional analyses of global governance, which are typically supply-side oriented (Acharya 2016). Nicholson et al. (2018) have further argued that governance should unfold in a polycentric manner whereby existing international institutions with existing relevant capabilities and interests should be a point of departure in constructing a global governance regime for these issues. Jinnah et al. (forthcoming 2018) have further proposed that state-level advisory commissions on SRM research could help build legitimacy in SRM research decisions through the inclusion of, at minimum: meaningful public engagement early in the research design process; an iterative and reflexive mechanism for learning and improving both participatory governance mechanisms and broader SRM governance goals over time; as well as mechanisms for adaptation and diffusion of governance mechanisms across jurisdictions and scales.

There have also been many important contributions from legal scholars who have put forth suggestions for structuring governance across existing international institutions (Armeni and Redgwell 2015), designing new ones, such as a World Commission (Parson 2017), and taking account of intergenerational equity in the structuring of international legal mechanisms purporting to govern SRM technologies (Burns 2011).² Natural and physical scientists have also been active in these discussions, participating in teams that have outlined core principles that should guide governance in this area (Rayner et al. 2013).³ Ethicists and philosophers have generated further insights and proposals. Stephen Gardiner (2013), for example, argues that framing SAI as a global public good has deep ethical implications for governance, and Hartzell-Nichols (2012) argues that the precautionary principle should operate to allow research into SRM technologies only insofar as research can help illuminate potential catastrophic threats associated with SRM deployment.⁴ Despite these and many other important contributions, there remains much room to broaden these insights to include more diverse perspectives from other disciplines such as political science, sociology, and science and technology studies. This Symposium adds to this literature, with contributions from scholars who work in some of these fields.

About the symposium and its contributors

The contributions to this Symposium are intended to be provocative, pushing the boundaries of existing discussions on this topic, by asking us to think bigger, including about issues of equity and about what constitutes the nature of governance itself. The collection of articles offers a set of theoretically derived insights and recommendations on SRM. Collectively, the contributions take up the question: How should this potentially beneficial but also potentially dangerous suite of technologies be governed in order to ensure not only institutional effectiveness but equity along various dimensions? We, and the authors, are motivated by a set of questions that moves beyond the potential physical and environmental risks attached to SRM proposals. Collectively, we are concerned about what is at stake, not just in the potential development of SRM proposals, but also in governance decisions that could hold back beneficial research. Toward what ends and in whose interests should governance efforts be directed? What should properly be considered the object of governance, such that efforts to govern actually end up having the intended and desired effects?

The contributors to this Symposium are particularly well placed to intervene in this way. Since March 2016, the authors⁵ have participated as either members of, or advisors to, the Academic Working Group (AWG) on Climate Engineering Governance. This interdisciplinary and international group of scholars met five times over two years to produce a report for policymakers on international governance pathways for SRM (Chhetri et al. 2018). It is the first governance report on climate engineering to be produced entirely by governance scholars.⁶ The AWG was convened and is overseen by the Forum for Climate Engineering Assessment (FCEA) at American University, which is co-directed by one of the co-editors, Simon Nicholson. Co-editor Sikina Jinnah is a member of the AWG and serves on the FCEA Board of Advisors.⁷

The Symposium opens with an innovative format consisting of a multi-authored Forum in which Toby Svoboda, Holly Buck, and Pablo Suarez explore the human rights challenges presented by climate engineering. Svoboda initiates the Forum discussion arguing for presenting three approaches to human rights, suggesting that approaches that emphasize fairness or attempt to maximize satisfaction are more promising for application to climate engineering than the view that human rights are inviolable. Buck then turns to an examination of what climate engineering governance can learn from governance of climate migration. She argues that soft law approaches have made important initial progress in the climate migration context, with lessons that may be transferrable to the climate engineering context. In particular, she highlights the relevance of the human rights approach to duties, rights, and participation, as enshrined in climate migration governance, as particularly relevant to climate engineering. Finally, drawing on his deep on-the-ground experience with humanitarian aid through the Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre, Suarez rounds out the Forum by comparing ‘needs-based’ and ‘rights-based’ approaches to humanitarian work in the face of climate change and climate engineering. Identifying core governance questions of who will bear the cost of humanitarian interventions in a climate engineered future, and what voice will the vulnerable have in climate engineering decisions, he underscores that climate engineering should not be isolated from broader questions about development and moral responsibility. Collectively, these authors point to a human rights-based approach as a necessary condition of equitable climate engineering governance.

The first research article, by Ken Conca, initiates an institutional discussion. In drawing lessons from the scholarly and practitioner literature on multi-stakeholder dialogues (MSDs) across a variety of policy fields, Conca lays out a series of conditions under which MSDs are likely to be effective for climate engineering. In suggesting some preliminary steps forward in the design of any MSD for climate engineering, he stresses: the importance of keen attention to the purpose, such as a focus on social learning in early stages; the need to engage systematically with broad forms of expertise, in particular developing-country scientists; and the need to promote experimentation with various techniques of public engagement and deliberative learning. Ultimately, Conca argues that although there are significant risks associated with MSD failure, including unrealistically raised expectations about consensus and the danger of capture, the pace at which climate engineering debates and knowledge are developing suggest that preliminary measures undertaken now can enhance the prospects of successful dialogue.

Catriona McKinnon delves even more deeply into a discussion of equity along a vastly different time horizon. She focuses on intergenerational justice, and argues for a contemporary responsibility to govern these technologies in a way that ensures we do not ‘endanger’ future peoples. Underscoring the danger of technological lock-in, she outlines a framework for identifying lock-in at early stages and shutting down research and/or deployment if any of these conditions are met. Centrally, she argues that SRM governance efforts and frameworks must incorporate provisions to identify and prevent dangerous forms of technological lock-in, as a precautionary measure for intergenerational equity.

Leslie Thiele picks up the theme of broad engagement in governance discussions, suggesting that a sustainability-oriented framing of climate engineering governance may be a way to bridge the communication and ideological gaps between Gaian opponents of climate engineering and its Promethean supporters. For Thiele, discourses of sustainability offer an ‘expanded temporal and spatial horizon that responsibly accounts for the interdependencies of living systems.’ On this definition, he sees grounds for a more productive and constructive dialogue about SRM.

Concluding the Symposium, Aarti Gupta and Ina Möller ask us to fundamentally re-think what it means to govern climate engineering. They argue that the widespread assumption that climate engineering governance does not exist, actually obscures the powerful governance effects of authoritative assessments, such as reports from the British Royal Society and the US National Academy of Sciences. They uncover the governance effects of these bodies, including in demarcating and categorizing this field of inquiry. Drawing from the science and technology studies literature, they term these unnoticed and unacknowledged governance effects ‘de facto’ governance. Ultimately, they too point to the equity implications of ‘de facto’ governance in shaping climate engineering debates in ways that have given priority to technocratic debates in lieu of ethical or philosophical ones, which may well have developed in the absence of these authoritative assessments.

In comparison to much prior work that has recommended governance pathways on climate engineering, the Symposium contributions offer a suite of recommendations that are grounded in various social science theories of governance. These range from grounded and specific interventions to high-level calls for rethinking the way governance is constructed. They include, but are not limited to the following:

• SRM governance must be guided by insights and frameworks from the world of human rights, if SRM research and any possible pathways to SRM deployment are to operate to the benefit of the most vulnerable among us (Svoboda, Buck, and Suarez);

• Multi stakeholder dialogues, if pursued in this space, should be carefully designed, including through careful consideration of specific focus, incorporation of broad expertise, and the need to promote experimentation with public engagement and learning (Conca);

• Governance mechanisms must detect, slow, and stop lock-in (McKinnon);

• Governance design must not be shackled by existing experience and models; creative design will be needed to manage the host of new challenges climate engineering presents (McKinnon);

• It will take creative reframing and the search for common principles of evaluation for differing camps in the SRM conversation to move toward more productive dialogue (Theile); and

• Governance, including informal or ‘de facto’ mechanisms, should be critically assessed to ensure they do not implicitly or unintentionally legitimize or institutionalize technocratic concerns while dampening others, such as those surrounding philosophy or ethics (Gupta and Möller).

There remains much work to be done to adequately understand and be prepared for the host of challenges climate engineering, and SRM in particular, will present to society. This Symposium works to push these debates further and in new directions.

Acknowledgments

Jinnah’s work on this Symposium was made possible, in part, by a Fellowship from the Andrew Carnegie Corporation. All statements made and views expressed are the sole responsibility of the authors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. See Parker and Irvine (2018) and Rabitz (2019).

2. See Nicholson et al. (2018) and Jinnah (2018) for a review of this work.

3. See Morrow (2016) for a detailed summary of these reports.

4. Others disagree with Gardiner’s assessment. See Morrow (2014).

5. The one exception is Ina Möller, who is second author with AWG member Aarti Gupta.

6. The report can be accessed here: www.ceassessment.org/SRMreport.

7. More information on FCEA and the AWG is available here: http://ceassessment.org/.