--> Blog – Page 3 – Jesse Reynolds / international & technology environmental policy
List

Three essays in Science aim to take concerns seriously and constructively

Solar geoengineering research is not dormant, but it has been advancing much more slowly than one might expect given its potential to reduce climate change and the continued insufficiency of greenhouse gas emissions reductions. Annual spending on solar geoengineering research remains only ~20 million US dollars, or about 0.04% of climate change spending. The reason for this paucity is multiple concerns with strong rhetorical appeal–especially among environmentalists and progressives–but of varying degrees of seriousness and coherence.

Three essays in today’s issue of Science each propose how to advance research while taking objections seriously. First, 21 authors, led by Joe Aldy, Tyler Felgenhauer, Billy Pizer, and Max Tavoni and including me, point to the importance of social science research to improve understanding of these and more. We suggest three priority areas: the costs, benefits, risks, and uncertainty of solar geoengineering; its potential role in a portfolio of multiple responses (i.e. emissions reduction, carbon dioxide removal, adaptation, and solar geoengineering) to climate change; and the political economy of any deployment. The last of these is what particularly interests me. How might individual countries coordinate–or not–their solar geoengineering activities, some of which may have localized objectives? What countermeasures might countries that object to others’ solar geoengineering take, and what might the political repercussions be? Could a “club” of several countries manage and govern solar geoengineering reasonably well? Can countries with the capacity to use solar geoengineering mutually agree to restrain themselves from doing so? Through all this, developing countries’ involvement and interests are key:

The evolution of SG social science research should also engage scholars from around the world. The consideration of the justice implications of climate policy can be richer and more credible through a more inclusive approach in undertaking research and the production of evidence. Considering the potential for climate change and SG to have substantial impacts on developing countries, the next generation of SG research should integrate existing scholars and contribute to the training of new scholars in developing countries.

Second, David Keith suggests that a taxonomy of concerns regarding solar geoengineering, which could enable disagreement to contribute more to better understanding and decision-making. To this end, he proposes four top-level categories:

  • Physical harms of benevolent deployment, such as unwanted climatic side-effects
  • Injustice, including undermining emissions reduction and distributive injustices
  • Conflict, which could be the exacerbation of exiting conflict of actual malevolent solar geoengineering
  • Humanity and nature, capturing deeper concerns of the human-nature relationship

Implicitly connecting to the first essay (on which he was also a co-author), Keith notes that “Analysis of SG is oversupplied with generic normative claims about governance and undersupplied with detailed empirical research to understand the mental models of relevant groups.”

Finally, in an editorial, my recent colleague Ted Parson calls for considering both the risks of researching, and not researching, solar geoengineering. This is particularly important because, while “the concerns that motivate opposition to research are compelling,” these are “impossible to fully address, as they are framed in ways that make rejecting research an axiom, not a conclusion based on evidence.” Parson concludes:

Precaution is appropriate, even necessary. But precaution cannot selectively target risks from one climate response while ignoring its linkages to other responses and risks. Suppressing SG research is likely to make the harms and injustices that opponents fear more likely, not less.

  Posts

1 2 3 4 5 7
May 28th, 2020

Nonstate Actors Could Help Govern Solar Geoengineering

Governments are not acting; maybe others could — and should Originally published at Legal Planet. Although reductions in greenhouse gas […]

May 6th, 2020

A Solar Geoengineering Milestone Goes Largely Unnoticed

The first explicit, meaningful outdoor test garnered little attention in the news or from environmentalists Originally published at Legal Planet […]

April 27th, 2020

The Netherlands Will Likely Meet Ambitious Climate Targets

While COVID-19 will enable NL to meet a court mandate, the government wants to go further Previously published at Legal […]

March 26th, 2020

How the Coronavirus is (Not) Like Climate Change

The two have some informative parallels, although some observers draw the wrong conclusions Originally published at Legal Planet The coronavirus […]

March 11th, 2020

Europe Mulls its First Climate Law

What would it do in terms of emissions targets and likely actual mitigation? Originally published at Legal Planet. The European […]

February 13th, 2020

Tracing Trump’s Trillion Trees

The president’s embrace of massive tree planting has a remarkable — and questionable — backstory Originally published at Legal Planet […]

December 20th, 2019

Netherlands’ Supreme Court Demands More Emissions Cuts

However, today’s ruling will likely have little direct impact Originally published at Legal Planet Today the Netherlands’ supreme court sided […]

December 17th, 2019

Cutting Greenhouse Gas Emissions Will Not Prevent Dangerous Climate Change

Although it remains essential, we shouldn’t count on emissions cuts. It is time to focus on additional responses. Originally published […]

December 10th, 2019

Climate Change, Ozone Depletion, and the New York Times

The Montreal Protocol offers lessons for climate change, but not a role model Originally published at Legal Planet In an […]

November 18th, 2019

Why Don’t States Implement the Polluter Pays Principle?

An economic analysis suggests why not Originally published in Legal Planet Some time ago, I was thinking about the “polluter pays” […]