{"id":4275,"date":"2018-12-06T10:10:17","date_gmt":"2018-12-06T10:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/research-blog\/?p=4275"},"modified":"2018-12-04T16:10:58","modified_gmt":"2018-12-04T16:10:58","slug":"time-is-running-out-on-climate-change-but-geoengineering-has-dangers-of-its-own","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/research-blog\/2018\/12\/06\/time-is-running-out-on-climate-change-but-geoengineering-has-dangers-of-its-own\/","title":{"rendered":"Time is running out on climate change, but geoengineering has dangers of its own"},"content":{"rendered":"

Could a new technology which reflects sunlight away from our planet be the answer to climate change? Or would this unregulated techo-fix create new and terrible dangers of its own? Catriona MacKinnon, Director of the Reading Centre for Climate Justice, discusses the dark side of solar radiation management in a new post for The Conversation<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

We have just\u00a012 years left<\/a>\u00a0to reduce emissions and achieve the Paris Agreement\u2019s highest ambition of limiting warming to 1.5\u00b0C. We have been warned, repeatedly, of the high stakes of our present climate gamble. If we continue on our current course, radical solutions are going to be needed sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n

Champions of solar radiation management (SRM) say this is the answer we\u2019ve been looking for.\u00a0SRM techniques<\/a>\u00a0cool the planet by reflecting sunlight away from it. The most discussed SRM technique involves continuously injecting tiny reflective particles \u2013 most often, sulphur \u2013 into the stratosphere to evenly cover the planet and shield us from the sun\u2019s rays. Fleets of drones, or sprayers attached to enormous tethered balloons, could deliver these particles. Spray a little more, and the temperature drops; spray a little less, and the temperature rises.<\/p>\n

Unlike the other dominant form of climate engineering, carbon dioxide removal, SRM does not extract greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Rather, it masks the warming caused by those gases.\u00a0Advocates<\/a>\u00a0say that SRM could give humanity a decent shot at getting its act together on mitigation. They also say the costs of SRM would be a fraction of the costs of the climate impacts we are facing without this technology.<\/p>\n

Poor regulation<\/strong><\/p>\n

However, there are reasons for caution, if not outright scepticism, about the wisdom of this techno-fix for climate change. One important worry relates to who governs research into SRM, given the risks it presents and its seductiveness as a \u201csolution\u201d to the climate crisis. There are\u00a0some proposed<\/a>\u00a0self-regulations by SRM researchers, and more attention is being paid to international\u00a0governance of SRM research<\/a>, but a vacuum of governance remains.<\/p>\n

To fill this vacuum in morally acceptable ways requires establishing governance to address the danger of\u00a0sleepwalking into SRM \u201clock-in\u201d<\/a>, where a society becomes locked-in to a technology that has become too costly to abandon, even though alternative technologies may be better.<\/p>\n

Once SRM deployment has begun, a\u00a0status quo bias<\/a>\u00a0could quickly establish the new normal of a geoengineered world. It could combine with\u00a0environmental generational amnesia<\/a>, a phenomenon where generations of people forget previous environmental states and so don\u2019t notice their deterioration. Those with their hands on the global thermostat \u2013 political leaders focused on short electoral cycles, and corporate leaders feeding the bottom line \u2013 would be tempted to continuously extend deployment to enable more and more business as usual.<\/p>\n

A climate catastrophe<\/strong><\/p>\n

Imagine we become locked-in to a permanent geoengineered world in which SRM is being widely used but catastrophic climate change has been avoided. What\u2019s the problem?<\/p>\n

One potential big risk of widespread deployment of SRM is something called\u00a0termination shock<\/a>, where the technology is abruptly stopped, for example, by war, natural disaster, or sabotage. This would cause temperatures to rise very quickly to reflect the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases. If societies are locked into the technology, these speedy rises could be truly catastrophic. Even if SRM were to be used only temporarily, the long atmospheric life of C0\u2082 means that abrupt termination would still lead to a massive, swift warming effect.<\/p>\n

SRM deployment is not an insurance policy against climate catastrophe. It creates new and terrible dangers of its own. We must not have a Panglossian view of the protection offered to us by existing institutions and the current global order. There needs to be governance of SRM research now that guards against lock in.<\/p>\n

Catriona McKinnon<\/a>\u00a0is Professor of Political Theory at the University of Reading and Director of the Reading Centre for Climate and Justice. She has held five prestigious Fellowship grants for her work on climate justice from the AHRC, the British Academy, and the Leverhulme Trust. She was member of a Working Group convened by the Forum for Climate Engineering that has written a report on the governance of Solar Radiation Management.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Catriona is the author of Climate Change and Future Justice (2011) and is currently finishing a book defending a new international criminal offence to address conduct endangering human extinction, as well as writing an introductory book on climate justice.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Could a new technology which reflects sunlight away from our planet be the answer to climate change? 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