http://www.stimson.org/images/uploads/research-pdfs/Commission_on_Global_Security_Justice%20_Governance.pdf
CONFRONTING THE CRISIS OF GLOBAL GOVERNANCE The Report of the Commission on Global Security, Justice & Governance is supported by The Hague Institute for Global Justice and the Stimson Center Extract 5.2.5 Geoengineering: Weighing benefits and risks Geoengineering (also called climate engineering) refers to strategies that try to alter the climate system through direct human intervention, broadly divided into two categories: (i) removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and (ii) modifying the reflective properties of the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide removal, or carbon sequestration, is the better understood of the two approaches. It aims to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and store it either by trapping it in the oceans through chemical reactions or in natural sinks underground. The most basic sequestration techniques are widely considered safe for experimentation and limited implementation. Modifying the reflective properties of the atmosphere—also called albedo modification or solar radiation management (SRM)—is the more controversial approach. It seeks to increase the atmosphere’s reflective properties by dispersing aerosols or cloud-seeding or brightening techniques, for example, to keep a larger fraction of the sun’s heat from reaching the lower atmosphere, lowering global temperatures if done on a large enough scale. Unlike storing excess carbon, however, these techniques can fundamentally alter other important climate dynamics, such as regional precipitation patterns, and they do not alter GHG concentrations or their contributions to ocean acidification. SRM strategies are likely to have unforeseen transboundary impacts, would pose a host of governance challenges and ethical concerns, and do not address the root causes of carbon pollution. Any SRM experimentation should, therefore, be undertaken with the greatest caution. In 2011, 160 CSOs and other nongovernmental actors lobbied the IPCC not to promote geoengineering, fearing that it would overshadow broader climate mitigation efforts, as well as divert funds that might otherwise be used for climate adaptation. However, some forms of geoengineering may be a growing risk to orderly climate change management because they appear temptingly inexpensive, and have no framework in place to prevent unwise experimentation, even on a fairly large scale. Although the science of geoengineering is mentioned in the most recent IPCC assessment report, little mention is made of governance aspects or a recommended way forward. Currently no international treaties govern geoengineering and no international organization has offered policy guidance, but national scientific bodies have begun to consider its applications and implications, and the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies has suggested a code of conduct. -- 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]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
