Hi All
Shame about no mention of the troposphere.
Stephen
Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design. School of Engineering,
University of Edinburgh, Mayfield Road, Edinburgh EH9 3DW, Scotland
s.sal...@ed.ac.uk, Tel +44 (0)131 662 1180 WWW.homepages.ed.ac.uk/shs,
YouTube Jamie Taylor Power for Change
On 24/01/2020 21:26, Andrew Lockley wrote:
https://blog.ucsusa.org/shuchi-talati/provision-in-fy20-spending-package-deserves-bigger-discussion
A Small Provision in the FY20 Spending Package Deserves a Much Bigger
Discussion
SHUCHI TALATI, SOLAR GEOENGINEERING RESEARCH, GOVERNANCE AND PUBLIC
ENGAGEMENT FELLOW | JANUARY 24, 2020, 2:36 PM EST
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The appropriations process is what Congress uses to make decisions
about how the federal government will spend discretionary funds –
funds that aren’t already designated to mandatory spending. The
process is confusing, convoluted, and often gets behind schedule: the
2020 fiscal year appropriations process, for example, finally came to
a close a few months after FY20 began. The spending package that
passed both chambers of Congress and was signed by the president in
December 2019 accounts for $1.4 trillion in spending, from national
defense to housing to climate science.
Within that almost incomprehensible amount, there was a small, yet
important $4 million earmark that merits scrutiny: the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was given this money
specifically to conduct solar geoengineering research, the first time
in the United States that Congress has allocated money to a federal
agency to do so. It’s a small pot of money, but it’s important to
understand the context in which it was allocated. Currently, two
critical processes to help design solar geoengineering research
governance are taking place, and there are consequences to the federal
government jumping ahead of their results. For something as
controversial and dangerous as solar geoengineering, we have to get
the governance right.
Some context
Solar geoengineering describes a controversial set of proposed
approaches to limit warming by reflecting sunlight to cool the planet.
The most widely discussed approach is stratospheric aerosol injection
(SAI), a method that would inject aerosols into the stratosphere,
which is an upper layer of Earth’s atmosphere. These aerosol particles
would then reflect sunlight and could rapidly cool the planet,
offsetting warming from global warming emissions for a relatively low
direct cost. However, such measures come with significant risks and
uncertainties – scientists, for example, do not fully understand the
impacts of such measures on global weather patterns. There are also
legitimate risks to geopolitical stability and these approaches do not
address the underlying cause of climate change. However, when
considered as part of a portfolio of approaches to address climate
change, solar geoengineering could limit harm while we scale up
mitigation, adaptation and carbon removal efforts.
Solar geoengineering research is in nascent stages and has been
largely limited to computer modeling. More modeling research is
certainly needed, and there are now proposals for small-scale outdoor
experiments, such as Harvard University’s SCoPEx project. But moving
forward with solar geoengineering requires us to first establish
robust governance. Lack of governance on any scale is arguably the
most dangerous aspect of geoengineering, including governance for
research. Research governance is critical for solar geoengineering
since it is a technology that poses global impacts, even at the
experimental stage. It ideally includes oversight, transparency, and
measures to ensure that the public and a diverse set of stakeholders
can participate in important decisions. There has been debate on
whether and how a federal program in the United States may conduct,
fund, and oversee future research, but thus far such a program does
not yet exist.
Right now, a committee of the National Academies of Sciences,
Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) is writing a report on developing
solar geoengineering research priorities and approaches for research
governance. This highly anticipated report is expected to provide
detailed guidance on next steps in both research and oversight–a
report that NOAA itself is helping fund. Importantly, National
Academies reports provide legitimacy in their recommendations through
a diverse and well-respected committee, thorough literature review,
and external consultation. Due out in a matter of months, this report
likely will be a basis on which future governance discussions and
actions are built.
There is also an independent advisory committee in place to provide
governance for the first outdoor small-scale experiment, the
Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment, or SCoPEx for short,
at Harvard University. This committee is working to produce an
inclusive review process for the experiment and will publicly release
its findings and recommendations that can hopefully serve as a
governance model for future experiments.
What does this mean?
So back to the $4 million earmark. The language instructs NOAA to do
more research related to the stratosphere itself, building on what the
agency already does, and directs them to also conduct observations
from natural systems releasing aerosols into the stratosphere (that
is, volcanic eruptions) – an extremely useful enterprise. The language
then also proposes NOAA research into solar climate interventions,
including modeling but also potential outdoor experiments.
Given that this earmark is authorizing funding for solar
geoengineering research for the first time, it’s especially important
that it provides clear direction, which is not readily apparent from
the vague language (see page 17 for the relevant paragraph). While $4
million doesn’t amount to much money in a research context,
designating this for solar geoengineering is jumping ahead of an
important National Academies process that will provide specific
recommendations for how to structure such funding and subsequent
oversight for this and other geoengineering research.
At the same time the spending package passed this December,
Congressman McNerney (D-CA), a member of both the House Science as
well as Energy and Commerce Committees, built on the $4 million NOAA
appropriation by introducing a separate bill that authorizes NOAA to
create a formal program for solar geoengineering research. It would
additionally grant the agency oversight authority to review research
and related outputs from external groups in the United States. This
would mean that NOAA could have oversight over research it is not
conducting or funding.
Such a review process would likely be beneficially informed by the
outcome of the SCoPEx governance process, as it’s not one that’s been
done before and is being conducted by researchers outside of the
government. While this bill is in the early stages of an arduous
congressional process, it is also essential before moving forward to
wait for the report from the National Academies to review and draw
upon its recommendations.
Before Congress moves authorizes federal-level research and governance
of an immensely controversial technologies, it must await input from
external experts and publics to inform whether and how best to do so.
We need more research into solar geoengineering to understand these
approaches and their risks. But a U.S. federal program that allows
support for outdoor experiments is, at best, premature.
NOAA should use the $4 million to continue studying the stratosphere
and observing natural changes. But in advance of the National
Academies report – and in a time when the federal government is
failing to act (let alone lead) on climate mitigation and adaptation,
our tax dollars should not be supporting investments in solar
geoengineering experiments
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