I generally believe that the concerns over potential conflict over solar climate engineering are often overblown. There will surely be disagreements among countries as to their desired temperatures. Yet often implied and sometimes explicitly stated in the CE discourse is that these disagreements would likely lead to armed conflict, and/or that they would render CE ineffective. Countries, including the powerful ones, routinely disagree over numerous things. My sense is that definitions and rules in the WTO and its agreements, for example, are much more consequential for them than CE would be. These conflicts are resolved through various sorts of bargaining. Perhaps I am excessively optimistic, but it seems that the nature of international conflict and resolution is fundamentally different (and more peaceful) than 100 years ago (to use Olaf’s WW1 example), particularly among the powerful countries. Solar CE has the advantage, like much of international trade, that the advantages of countries’ collective agreement would likely outweigh their potential, individual advantages of getting the climate which they desire. Disagreement could lead to various CE programs interfering with one another, and they would all be left worse off. That is, it is a resolvable collective action problem.
>From my vantage, the biggest concern would be if there were a systematic >disagreement on the type and intensity of solar CE among powerful countries >versus weak ones. The Ricke et al paper (which I recommend) cited by Ken >begins to get at the that, but it also assumes that all countries would desire >pre-industrial climates. That may not be the case. -Jesse ----------------------------------------- Jesse L. Reynolds, PhD Postdoctoral researcher Research funding coordinator, sustainability and climate European and International Public Law Tilburg Sustainability Center Tilburg University, The Netherlands Book review editor, Law, Innovation, and Technology email: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> http://works.bepress.com/jessreyn/ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ken Caldeira Sent: 31 January 2015 18:32 To: [email protected] Cc: Motoko; geoengineering Subject: Re: [geo] Washington Post op ed Kate Ricke's model results are often trotted out to support the 'winners and losers' meme, but if you look at her results the conflict is between people who win less and people who win more. We did a follow-up study on political dynamics, using her results (see below). A key point to recognize is that, under typical climate damage metrics, the optimal amount of solar geoengineering for any given region differs from the global optimum typically by about 10%. That is, people would be arguing about the second digit, not the first digit. I doubt these second digit arguments will lead to any great conflict. The much greater conflict would likely to be whether to deploy a sulfate aerosol layer at all. If a consensus can be found to deploy, I doubt whether there will be that much conflict over subtle adjustments to the knob. http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/1/014021/article Panel (a) shows on the vertical axis climate damage to different regions as a fraction of damages without solar geoengineering. The horizontal axis is th amount of solar geoengineering. Panels (b) and (c) show the optimum preferred by different regions. Note that they differ from the global optimum by only 10% or so. [cid:[email protected]] _______________ Ken Caldeira Carnegie Institution for Science Dept of Global Ecology 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA +1 650 704 7212 [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab https://twitter.com/KenCaldeira My assistant is Dawn Ross <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, with access to incoming emails. On Sat, Jan 31, 2015 at 7:54 AM, Cush Ngonzo Luwesi <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: I partly agree with Andy: Skepticism yes but realism is also needed. Alvin Toffler (1970) predicted the “future shock” that “change denial” will cause in the anthropocene. He used an analogy from the transmission of sound through electrical cables, which until 1875, was unconceivable by some while M. Bell was inventing the first telephone. Thence, he called for improved anticipation in governance to mitigate that future shock and ensure a smooth transition from hold practices to the new technological environment with the pace of social and technical change (Jasanoff, 2011; Stilgoe et al., 2013). Nonetheless, Toffler (1970) argued that not all technological and scientific discoveries would come out from the laboratories and take place nor would they see the light; some would just abort while others would vanish in the impasse, owing to their unfeasibility or fanciness or even disconnection to reality and disconcertion. This corroborate with the recent Royal Society’s Berlin Declaration 2014 on geoengineering. Dr Cush Ngonzo Luwesi, PhD Lecturer Department of Geography Kenyatta University On Sat, Jan 31, 2015 at 3:24 PM, Motoko <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Great reference. I want to add the following sentence of von Neumann: "All experience shows that even smaller technological changes than those now in the cards profoundly transform political and social relationships." Von Neumann could be right in assuming that climate control will change a lot. It will change also the relationship of science and policy. Am 30.01.2015 um 22:37 schrieb Jim Fleming: As argued in 1955: "Present awful possibilities of nuclear warfare may give way to others even more awful. After global climate control becomes possible, perhaps all our present involvements will seem simple. We should not deceive ourselves: once such possibilities become actual, they will be exploited." -- John von Neumann, “Can We Survive Technology?” Fortune, June 1955, 106–108. James R. Fleming Professor of Science, Technology, and Society, Colby College Research Associate, Columbia University Series Editor, Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology, bit.ly/THQMcd<http://bit.ly/THQMcd> Profile: http://www.colby.edu/directory/profile/jfleming/ On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 11:00 AM, Olaf Corry <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: I agree with the basic idea that the politics of this will be likely to be very tricky (although - and partly for that reason - I remain unconvinced by the other premise of the article that SPI has been overwhelmingly shown to have net life-saving potential). Andrew, why the incredulity at a conflict scenario? The thing about international relations is that outcomes do not always reflect intentions or desired collective outcomes. History is full of consensus processes breaking down and collectively sub-optimal (to put it mildly) outcomes. Presumably everybody had an incentive to avoid the chaos of WW1 and stick to a consensus process... So the authors are right in my opinion to raise this problem regarding SRM. I would add that by complicating/souring the international diplomatic situation SRM could easily affect the ability to agree and cooperate internationally on mitigation and adaptation too, which we agree would still need to happen as fast as possible. If we are consistently outcome-ethical about it we probably shouldn't put the politics in one compartment and the evaluation of the technology in another one. Best regards Olaf Corry On Friday, 30 January 2015 09:18:54 UTC, andrewjlockley wrote: I disagree fundamentally with the premise of this article. A decision on climate has to be made. Everyone knows it. Everyone has an incentive to avoid chaos. Therefore, people have a very large incentive to stick to a consensus process, because anyone who doesn't stick will instantly break that consensus and cause chaos - which is a guaranteed loser for all. Same reason villagers don't burgle their neighbours when police are busy elsewhere dealing with a major incident. A On 30 Jan 2015 08:54, "Andy Parker" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Hey folks, the Washington Post just published an op ed on the messy politics of solar geoengineering, written by David Keith and me: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/whats-the-right-temperature-for-the-earth/2015/01/29/b2dda53a-7c05-11e4-84d4-7c896b90abdc_story.html -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. 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