hi,
as a very keen advocate of serious and swift efforts to reduce ghg
emissions, I am also keen for the development of some regulation and
international agreement on some GE. Despite this, I would be worried
about conditionality applied to all technologies / methodologies which
might be considered by some to fall into the GE bracket as proposed, due
to, for eg:
a. GE. Some parts of the changes in the Earth system are too progressed
for emissions reductions to have adequate effect soon enough - eg Arctic
sea ice may not be stabilised by emissions reductions now - it will take
more than this to prevent the feedbacks from the Arctic from further
accelerating cc, with seriously damaging implications globally.
b. some GE can be initiated now, which offer emissions reductions,
adaptation and active mitigation (draw down of CO2), for eg. biochar,
which can also help us deliver on our food production needs and our need
for diverse, local, cheap and reliable energy supplies. There is no
reason to prevent this, and perhpaps a small selection of other
technologies, from being utilised now (I think it already is). I suspect
that imposing the conditionality would be impossible to police for some
technologies.
The proposal of conditionality can relate to the discussion on the
perception or not of 'moral hazard' or whichever phrase is used to
describe a perceived concern that deploying GE could detract focus and
funds away from emission reduction strategies. I am so relieved to hear
that the NERC study found this argument not to be as prevalent as assumed.
It can be viewed like this : I need both food and water to live.
Drinking water doesn't mean I don't need to eat.
I hope this perspective helps,
very best wishes,
Emily.
On 18/09/2010 15:34, [email protected] wrote:
Dear Josh,
Because GE can at best only delay global warming, I suggested at
Asilomar that a condition for the implementation of GE be that
satisfactory mitigation steps must have already been achieved.
Sincerely,
Oliver Wingenter
On 9/17/2010 3:56 PM, Josh Horton wrote:
One of the more interesting findings pertains to the "moral hazard"
argument against geoengineering, that is, people will embrace
geoengineering as an excuse to avoid emissions reductions, and current
levels of fossil fuel consumption will persist if not increase. Moral
hazard has emerged as one of the principal arguments against climate
engineering, despite the fact that geoengineering advocates generally
support aggressive mitigation as the preferred option, and are quick
to note the limitations of specific strategies, such as continued
ocean acidification and the so-called "termination problem" in the
case of stratospheric aerosol injections.
Evidence from the public dialogue summarized in the NERC report
indicates that participants viewed mitigation and geoengineering as
complementary policies, not as mutually exclusive alternatives.
Stakeholders saw a link between geoengineering and emissions controls,
and preferred a suite of mitigation and geoengineering measures to
reliance on any single approach. "This evidence is contrary to the
'moral hazard' argument that geoengineering would undermine popular
support for mitigation or adaptation," notes the report. While this
study represents only one set of empirical data gathered in one
particular sociocultural context, it is to my knowledge the first time
the moral hazard argument has been tested, and demonstrates little
support for this proposition.
Josh Horton
[email protected]
http://geoengineeringpolitics.blogspot.com/
On Sep 9, 10:45 am, Emily<[email protected]> wrote:
best wishes,
Emily.
Dear Colleague,
NERC has published the final report of Experiment Earth? , our public
dialogue on geoengineering. It can be found
at:http://www.nerc.ac.uk/about/consult/geoengineering.asptogether
with a
short leaflet summarising the findings and recommendations from the
report.
The latest issue of NERC's Planet Earth magazine also contains an
article about the public dialogue, which can be found
here:http://planetearth.nerc.ac.uk/features/story.aspx?id=744
Regards,
Peter
Peter Hurrell
Stakeholder Liaison Officer | Policy and Partnerships Team
Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
Putting NERC science to use: find out more through NERC s Science
Impacts Database<http://sid.nerc.ac.uk/>
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