https://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/no.-8-winter-2018/geoengineering-justice
the Breakthrough Institute <https://thebreakthrough.org/> - ABOUT <https://thebreakthrough.org/about> - JOURNAL <https://thebreakthrough.org/journal> - DIALOGUE <https://thebreakthrough.org/dialogue> - FELLOWSHIPS <https://thebreakthrough.org/fellowship> - ISSUES <https://thebreakthrough.org/issues> - PUBLICATIONS <https://thebreakthrough.org/publications> - VOICES <https://thebreakthrough.org/voices> - DONATE <https://thebreakthrough.org/donate> - - - About <https://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/about/> - - Current Issue <https://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/no.-8-winter-2018/> - - Past Issues <https://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/past-issues/> - - Authors <https://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/authors/> - - Subscribe <https://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/subscribe-to-the-journal/> Geoengineering Justice <https://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/no.-8-winter-2018/geoengineering-justice>Who Gets to Decide Whether to Hack the Climate [image: {photo_credit}] *Winter 2018 *| Jonathan Symons <https://thebreakthrough.org/people/profile/Jonathan-Symons> SHARE - Email <https://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/no.-8-winter-2018/geoengineering-justice#> - - facebook - - Tweet <https://twitter.com/share?url=https://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/no.-8-winter-2018/geoengineering-justice> - - Print <https://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/no.-8-winter-2018/geoengineering-justice#> - - Google <https://plus.google.com/share?url=%7bURL%7d> *t is the opening day of the 24th Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. As officials gather in Katowice, a center of Poland’s coal and steel industries, to review progress toward the Paris Agreement, five developing states, calling themselves the “Geoengineering Justice Coalition,” circulate an ultimatum. By 2020, rich countries must fulfill all pledges made in the Paris Agreement, including promises of $US 100 billion in annual assistance to the developing world. If they fail, the coalition will commence solar geoengineering. Through interventions that reflect a tiny proportion of the sun’s energy back into space, the**se developing states promise to artificially halt global warming.* *A spokesperson for the Geoengineering Justice Coalition addresses the press: “It is now three decades since, at a meeting in Toronto in 1988, developed countries first promised to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2005. **Today, we have reached a point where, even if all Paris Agreement pledges are fulfilled, warming this century is likely to exceed 3* *°**C.* <https://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/no.-8-winter-2018/geoengineering-justice#foot[1]> [1] <https://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/no.-8-winter-2018/geoengineering-justice#_ftn1> *As the climate has warmed, we have learned how heat waves, crop failures, rising seas, and extreme weather visit their worst harms on those who are already vulnerable. These harms to the world’s poorest people are caused — albeit indirectly and unintentionally — by the activities of the richest.* *“Thus when our scientists tell us that the poorest people can be the greatest beneficiaries of solar geoengineering, we cannot dismiss them lightly.* <https://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/no.-8-winter-2018/geoengineering-justice#foot[2]> [2] <https://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/no.-8-winter-2018/geoengineering-justice#_ftn2>* Today I invite all countries to join in designing a pro-poor plan of implementation. For developed countries, there is an admission price: they must first contribute their proportionate share of adaptation assistance to the Green Climate Fund. Geoengineering will commence only if the rich world does not fulfill its promises, and only with the approval of a majority of participating states.”* <https://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/no.-8-winter-2018/geoengineering-justice#foot[3]>*[3] <https://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/no.-8-winter-2018/geoengineering-justice#_ftn3>* Admittedly, the idea of a Geoengineering Justice Coalition is fanciful. There is no significant constituency for either third-world radicalism or hubristic technological interventions. <https://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/no.-8-winter-2018/geoengineering-justice#foot[4]> [4] <https://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/no.-8-winter-2018/geoengineering-justice#_ftn4> However, thinking about solar geoengineering from a developing-world perspective serves another purpose: it disrupts the idea that in the Anthropocene all share a common fate. In the case of geoengineering, that idea has been codified conceptually in the Oxford Principles, the most widely recognized ethical standards governing the research and implementation of geoengineering. The principles suggest that geoengineering must be regulated as a public good, with prior informed consent of all affected communities and, consequently, a universal governance arrangement to oversee implementation. <https://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/no.-8-winter-2018/geoengineering-justice#foot[5]> [5] <https://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/no.-8-winter-2018/geoengineering-justice#_ftn5> Measured against the Oxford Principles, the Geoengineering Justice Coalition’s actions would be unethical, because they would not be predicated upon a global democratic consensus. Most scholars agree. Some go further. Cambridge geographer Mike Hulme, for instance, has argued that any solar geoengineering would be “undesirable, ungovernable, and unreliable.” Not only would it be impossible to achieve global agreement, but deployment would create international tension. Once geoengineering commences, suspicious minds might see the hand of foreign saboteurs in any unfavorable weather pattern. <https://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/no.-8-winter-2018/geoengineering-justice#foot[6]> [6] <https://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/no.-8-winter-2018/geoengineering-justice#_ftn6> The universal language of the Oxford Principles, however, conceals a sleight of hand. The principles require that the rules governing intentional actions, through which developing countries might protect their people from climate harms, should be very different from the rules governing the unintentional actions that create those harms. It is the rich world that has benefited most from those unintentional actions, not least from the myriad ways in which fossil-fueled development has made citizens of those nations much more resilient to climate extremes than their counterparts in poor nations. For this reason, it is also the poor world that stands to benefit most from intentional actions to mitigate climate change, including geoengineering. Because the near-term threats of climate change primarily afflict developing-world people, the rich and poor worlds may ultimately reach quite divergent conclusions about a flawed but functional techno-fix. In that eventuality, the universal ethical standards articulated by the Oxford Principles, well intentioned as they may be, might compound global injustice. *1.* -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. 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