Could Canada lead the formation of a new global geoengineering regime?

ABSTRACT

As the effects of climate change continue to worsen, nations will have the opportunity to develop and deploy climate manipulation techniques known as geoengineering to forestall the worst effects. Indeed, some have argued that the nations of the world cannot meet their Paris Agreement goals without them. However, these technologies can be global in their effects, ecologically uncertain, and potentially prejudicial to non-deploying nations. Canada is well suited to lead the formation of an anticipatory governance regime due to its technological knowledge, the proximity of the Arctic as a potential testing ground, and its role as an internationally respected middle power. By stepping forward to lead the effort, Canada can ensure its own security and environmental interests as well as the stability of the rules-based international order.

RÉSUMÉ

Alors que les effets du changement climatique continuent de s'aggraver, les nations auront la possibilité de développer et de déployer des techniques de manipulation du climat, connues sous le nom de géo-ingénierie, afin de prévenir les pires effets. En effet, certains ont fait valoir que les nations du monde ne peuvent pas atteindre les objectifs de l'accord de Paris sans elles. Cependant, ces technologies peuvent avoir des effets à l'échelle mondiale, être incertains sur le plan écologique et potentiellement préjudiciables aux pays qui ne les déploient pas. Le Canada est bien placé pour diriger la formation d'un régime de gouvernance anticipative en raison de ses connaissances technologiques, de la proximité de l'Arctique comme terrain d'essai potentiel et de son rôle de moyenne puissance respectée à l'échelle internationale. En prenant cette initiative, le Canada peut garantir sa propre sécurité et ses intérêts environnementaux, ainsi que la stabilité de l'ordre international fondé sur les règles.

KEYWORDS:

• Geoengineering
• climate change
• global governance
• foreign policy

Introduction

Against the 2022 backdrop of nationalist protests in several countries and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration quietly dropped a shocking number in June: 421 parts per million of CO₂ measured in the atmosphere, higher than at any time ever recorded (NOAA, 2022).

In July 2021, the Trudeau government submitted updated climate targets to the UN, pledging to cut greenhouse gas emissions 40–45% below 2005 levels by 2030 (Chung, 2021). These target updates are required under the terms of the Paris Agreement, to which Canada is a party, and serve to refocus the attention of the world’s countries on the ever-present danger from a warming planet. Nonetheless, the parties to the Paris Agreement are not likely to meet their stated targets, Canada among them, due to its heavy economic reliance on fossil fuel production. However, decarbonization of national energy supplies to help stabilize the climate is not just an issue of domestic politics, in Canada or any other country. Energy transition away from carbon is necessary for stabilization of the global climate, and this serves Canada in two ways: by reducing the climate-related threats that the nation must itself face, and by strengthening the international legal and political regime that benefits Canada in so many other arenas.

I. What is climate geoengineering and why do we need to regulate it?

As climate change progresses, states have three choices of action. The first option is climate mitigation, which involves reducing emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs), and by extension decarbonizing the entire world’s energy supply. This will incur significant upfront costs to the global economy. Although cost estimates and methodologies vary across models and initial assumptions (Köberle et al., 2021), the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. estimated that an orderly transition path to a net-zero carbon economy by the target date of 2050 would cost approximately $9.2 trillion per year (McKinsey & Company, 2022).

The second option, adaptation, involves adjusting a nation’s infrastructure to withstand the effects of climate change, from heatwaves to floods to droughts to storms. This is also expensive, as the IPCC has estimated adaptation costs between $140 billion and $300 billion per year by 2030, rising to between $280 billion and $500 billion by 2050 (United Nations Climate Change Secretariat, 2019). This will likely be done very unevenly across sectors and geographies, and the resulting disruptions will be painful for those who must endure them.

The third choice states have to combat the effects of climate change is geoengineering, or intentionally manipulating the earth’s climate using one or more of a range of technologies designed either to reflect sunlight away from the earth or remove greenhouse gases from the air directly and sequester them away from the atmosphere. These technologies vary in efficacy, cost, and time horizon; some still resemble science fiction, while others are operable now. Each of these technologies comes with significant downsides and uncertainties, and developing and deploying them without some level of supra-national governance runs the risk of the earth’s climate becoming the new backdrop for great powers to pursue their own interests.

The term “geoengineering” is an extremely broad, umbrella term that covers a range of technologies. The first type is called “solar radiation management” or solar geo. This refers to any type of technology that reflects sunlight out of the atmosphere before it can be absorbed as heat. Methods of solar geo can range from reflective surfaces to marine-based cloud brightening to sulfur aerosol injections into the stratosphere (NRC, 2015b). Solar geo is relatively fast-acting, but must be maintained indefinitely in order to avoid a kind of rebound warming, called termination shock, the sudden spike in temperatures when full-strength sunlight penetrates high-GHG atmosphere (Parker & Irvine, 2018). The second type of geoengineering is called “carbon dioxide removal” (CDR) or “negative emissions technologies” (NETs) and refers to any type of technology that removes CO₂ directly from the air (and/or other greenhouse gases as well) and sequesters it out of the atmosphere – either underground, undersea, in rock formations, or in plants (NRC, 2015a). CDR is generally less ecologically disruptive, but would take decades for the effects to be felt.

Currently, no country has either of these types of technology at scale anywhere yet, due to cost, technological development issues, or community protestations (Osaka, 2021). However, several proof-of-concept experiments have been conducted or are in the planning stages, including marine-based cloud brightening, ocean iron fertilization, and particulate aerosol injection (Osaka, 2021; Tollefson, 2021; “Law of the Sea”, 2009). Haszeldine et al. (2018) have argued that the Paris Agreement goals cannot be met without negative emissions technologies. A similar conclusion is reached by Langlois-Bertrand, Mousseau, & Beaumier (2021, p. 17) that Canada would need to implement NETs of some type to meet its stated commitments. This means fossil fuel producers in Canada should be putting as much money into negative emissions technologies as they can.

International law provides only piecemeal guidance on the use of these types of technologies, and nothing that prohibits or restricts geoengineering as a whole. From the security side, only the 1977 Environmental Modification Convention (ENMOD) addresses weather modification directly, and even then only prohibits it under conditions of “hostile intent.” While some scholars have argued that it can and should be updated to include geoengineering (Razcek, 2022), this may prove difficult in the current international climate of renewed great power competition, wherein states are increasingly loathe to give up any perceived competitive advantage. Similarly, Article 55 of the 1977 Geneva Protocol I prohibits inflicting “widespread, long-term and severe” damage to the environment during a conflict, but there is no precise understanding of how broad these terms are (Commentary of, 1987). In addition, several states with potential geoengineering capabilities are not parties to either of these conventions, such as India and the United States.

There have been some attempts at shaping the ethical norms surrounding geoengineering research and deployment with an eye towards restraining reckless attempts (Asilomar Scientific Organizing Committee, 2010, November; NAS, 2021). However, if a state sees a national benefit to be gained by deploying geoengineering, it will not refrain just because the attempt might be ethically problematic elsewhere in the world. To make sure geoengineering is researched and (perhaps) deployed in an orderly fashion, we need a regime structure to step into, with some assurance that the rules agreed to will apply to everyone. Any regime proposed by a great power will make other great powers suspicious of their intent; middle powers such as Canada have the opportunity to fill this leadership vacuum.

II. Why should Canada lead the way?

Is Canada well placed to lead the construction of a new global geoengineering governance regime? Yes, for three reasons.

First, Canada has the technical credibility to lead negotiations on energy and climate affairs due to its fossil fuel production expertise. Natural Resources Canada states that the country produces approximately 4.5 billion barrels of oil per day, 3.6 billion of which are exported (Natural Resources Canada, 2022, p. 102). As states move to ban imports of Russian crude over the war in Ukraine, Canada’s oil producers are ready to step into the gap, burnishing the country’s reputation as an international energy broker, and positioning Western democracies to “stop the weaponization of hydrocarbon energy,” as Alberta Premier Jason Kenney recently said to the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Canada Institute (Bakx, 2022; Woodrow Wilson Center, 2022). Yet those same producers recognize the need for carbon capture and storage technologies if Canada is to meet its 2030 emissions reduction targets (Walsh & Graney, 2022). Several scholars have already recommended that, in order to lessen the economic pain from its decarbonization effort, the Government of Canada (GOC) should increase the role of Canadian energy industry in the development of its climate and environmental foreign policy (Nijnatten & del Buey, 2021, p. 425). Including energy representatives on any climate negotiation team signals Canada’s intention to make this a wide-ranging and durable regime, and by emphasizing the aspects of the liberal international order that reinforce a sense of shared progress, Canada may be able to convince states reluctant to decarbonize that both the costs and benefits of doing so will be borne by everyone to one degree or another.

Canada also has a direct interest in the success of such a regime because as a wealthy northern nation, it stands to face the same national security concerns as other advanced economies in the face of the effects of climate change. Increasing temperatures mean more droughts and changes in precipitation can mean more floods and storms. This can lead to fluctuations in agricultural output, increased numbers of displaced people, and rising demands on Canada’s armed forces to supplement civil authorities for purposes of disaster relief (Conger & Fetzek, 2021). Internationally, a melting Arctic will result in more competition for transit routes, mineral deposits, and energy resources (Task Force on National Security, 2022, p. 7).

Although the discussion of climate security for Canada is extensive, several scholars have argued that Canada is not ready to face climate-induced threats due to failure of imagination and political indecision (Greaves, 2021) or institutional neglect (Task Force on National Security, 2022). This is problematic for the formation of any new regime, but the GOC can easily get out of this thought rut by bringing new thinkers on board. The establishment of a new NATO Climate and Security Center of Excellence (COE) in Montreal in 2022 will help focus Canada’s attention on this transnational threat; the GOC aims to have the new COE operable in 2023 (Brimmell, 2022).

Second, the Canadian Arctic could be a prime testing ground for geoengineering proof of concept. Geographically, the Arctic is the bellwether for the effects of a warming planet. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Centre, a joint venture between Canada and the United States, sea ice across the Arctic Ocean has been decreasing at an unprecedented rate since the middle of the last century (NSIDC, 2020). The loss of ice cover means loss of surface albedo (reflectivity), resulting in a positive feedback loop in the North as darker water and land surfaces trap more heat. Worse yet, methane emissions from melting permafrost could lead to runaway levels of warming, as methane is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

Several geoengineering technologies have already been identified as suitable for Arctic experimentation. Researchers from Stanford University and Ice911 have modeled the use of hollow glass microspheres spread across snow and ice surfaces to reflect sunlight successfully, including one test in Alberta (Field et al., 2018), and the Arctic Ice Project plans to test their use in Norway in the near future (Arctic Ice Project, 2021). Additional methods of geoengineering applicable to the Arctic include pumping seawater on top of the ice to thicken it (Desch et al., 2017), and use of hydrosols, or water with microbubbles of air, to increase albedo locally (Seitz, 2011). Since the Arctic is an early pressure point in the climate system, geoengineering technologies that are successful there can forestall worse effects elsewhere later.

No country knows the strategic importance of the Arctic better than Canada. As it continues to warm, the Arctic becomes a renewed theater of great power competition (Isai, 2022), and Canada needs to increase its presence there, in the company of allies if possible, but alone if necessary (Sanders, 2022, pp. 8–9). As geoengineering experiments continue in the Arctic, any resulting governance regime will have direct applicability, and it would better serve Canada’s strategic interests if it led these negotiations rather than any other Arctic power.

Third, Canada has a good diplomatic reputation in the international arena as a middle power who “support[s] a rules-based approach to international relations, often invoking the rule of law, alongside democratic governance and respect for human rights, as key values to be embraced by its foreign policy” (Harrington, 2021, p. 252). This means transparency and above-board dealings. Canada’s traditional role in the post-war international system has been to build consensus, not retreating into isolationism as the Americans have occasionally been tempted to do (Jockel & Sokolsky, 2021), and to choose policies and strategies that, “fit Canadians’ strength and military competencies” (Hilton, 2018).

To be sure, there are some current challenges for the GOC. Its foreign policy has suffered in recent years, according to the iAffairs Report Card (2022 Foreign Policy Report Card), and in 2020, the country campaigned for and failed to win a seat on the UN Security Council. Nonetheless, Canada’s international reputation for soft power is recognized by other nations around the world. The Diplometrics Program at the Korbel School of International Affairs has calculated the Formal Bilateral Influence Capacity Index, a number which tracks diplomatic influence of various types by “sending” country, that is, the country that exerts influence over other states. For the political bandwidth necessary to lead regime formation, Canada ranks near the top of the influence scale (Moyer et al., 2021). Likewise, both RepTrak and the USC Center for Public Diplomacy put Canada in the top 10 states for soft power and international influence (Soft Power 30, 2019; The Reputation Institute, 2021).

Conclusion: strategy within a strategy

Why would a middle power such as Canada take on this role? Why not leave formation of such a regime to the great powers? Traditionally, the Canadian government has preferred to sit back and let the United States, the European Union, or other larger international actors do the heavy lifting (Chapnick, 2005). But great power states, by virtue of their vaunted position in the global system, are suspicious of each other’s intent. If the United States or China were to propose a similar regime, each state would assume that it was intended to put the other at a strategic disadvantage somehow. By contrast, a middle power state that benefits from the continuation of the system, especially one with a respected soft power reputation like Canada, is assumed to be speaking on its behalf.

It is already the GOC’s policy to lead by example when combatting climate change. Now it has the unprecedented opportunity to lead the formation of a regime around a range of geoengineering technologies. Researchers from the North American and Arctic Defence and Security Network have pointed out that a piecemeal approach to governing is likely to fail, that international treaties will become increasingly important as experiments are scaled up, and recommended the formation of an interdisciplinary Canadian committee to review and govern any geoengineering experiments within Canada (Barclay, 2021, pp. 11–13). If the GOC accepts this recommendation, it will serve as an example to other nations of the value that middle powers provide to the stability of the rules-based international order.

The impacts from any geoengineering deployment will be uneven, both environmentally and economically. To avoid hostility and injustice in the wake of these technologies, the best way to guide and adjudicate their development and use will be through a transparent international regime. By leading the formation of this regime, Canada can ensure its traditional strategy-within-a-strategy: its own national security interests are represented at the same time the international order of rules and laws is strengthened. This falls squarely within Canada’s diplomatic wheelhouse, and Canada should step into its leadership role.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Fulbright Canada and the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Elizabeth L. Chalecki

Elizabeth L. Chalecki is an Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of Nebraska Omaha, a former Research Fellow in the Environmental Change and Security Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and a Fulbright Research Chair in Canada-U.S. Relations at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University.