www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-25/fear-of-geoengineering-is-really-anxiety-about-cutting-carbon

Fear of Geoengineering Is Really Anxiety About Cutting Carbon

Research into unproven technofixes isn’t a replacement for eliminating
emissions, even if the debate over geoengineering is stuck on that concern.
By
Gernot Wagner <https://www.bloomberg.com/authors/AUf12w4Uctg/gernot-wagner>

Typical climate discourse is already polarizing enough, but it’s nothing
compared to talk of “geoengineering.” Mention the catch-all term for
emerging technologies that could offset some of the effects of climate
change, and watch the world split into two distinct camps.

You are either a techno-optimist with faith in unproven innovation, or you
believe behavioral change is the key to stopping climate change. You are
either for or against rapid action. That’s the impression left from
perusing headlines on the topic or tuning into some of the loudest voices
in the debate.

Confusion and polarization abound, because geoengineering—any type of
geoengineering—is viewed through the same black-and-white lens as much of
the rest of climate discourse.

Some of this fear is justified. Discussion of solar geoengineering, in
which technology would be used to reflect a portion of sunlight back into
space
<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-03/solar-geoengineering-cooling-the-planet-can-be-fast-and-cheap>
and
cool the planet, has indeed been used as a distraction by those opposed to
climate action. In June 2008, at the height of the Obama-era push to pass
comprehensive climate legislation, former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich
penned
<https://humanevents.com/2008/06/03/stop-the-green-pig-defeat-the-boxerwarnerlieberman-green-pork-bill-capping-american-jobs-and-trading-americas-future/>
an
opinion piece arguing how solar geoengineering means that CO₂ emissions
cuts are not needed. If only.

Neither solar geoengineering nor carbon removal—confusingly also often
subsumed in the geoengineering category—are replacements for cutting
CO₂ emissions. In the case of solar geoengineering this is because it
simply is no replacement: at best, it’s a Band-Aid or perhaps a pain killer
that quite literally masks the underlying problem of carbon pollution. The
trouble with carbon removal, by contrast, is that currently it’s still very
expensive. To the surprise of no one, it costs more to suck CO₂ out of thin
air via chemical processes than to do so in concentrated form from
smokestacks as part of carbon capture and storage technologies, or
especially to avoid (most) CO₂ emissions in the first place.

Yes, planting trees and other “natural” climate solutions removes CO₂ from
thin air. And yes, we should be planting many more trees and avoid cutting
those now standing. But no, even planting a trillion trees alone will not
do either. The Trillion Trees Act
<https://republicans-naturalresources.house.gov/legislative-priorities/trillion-trees-act.htm>
itself
looks like a distraction from serious climate legislation.

Talk of trees, carbon removal, carbon capture, and solar geoengineering in
the same breath shows how a lot of the confusion in the geoengineering
debate comes about. Avowed opponents of (solar) geoengineering do
themselves no favor by confusing things even further.

A recent map put together by Geoengineering Monitor and funded, in part, by
the Heinrich Böll foundation affiliated with the German Green Party, lists
<https://map.geoengineeringmonitor.org/> over 1,500 “geoengineering”
projects. Among the culprits: the International Energy Agency, just by
looking into policy options for carbon capture. Another: New York City’s
CoolRoofs Initiative, for painting roofs white to reflect back sunlight and
cool the buildings underneath.

There is, of course, a clear difference between white rooftops dotting
Brooklyn brownstones or Mediterranean villages on the one hand, and actual
solar geoengineering research on the other. Research into whether
deliberately introducing tiny reflective particles into the lower
stratosphere could help cool the planet must spark a serious conversation
about how far we have come—and how important it is to cut CO₂ and other
greenhouse gas emissions instead of relying on an eventual technofix.

Many—perhaps most—of those opposed to geoengineering research are afraid of
a “moral hazard <https://gwagner.com/greenmh/>” of sorts. Merely looking
into geoengineering technologies, the logic goes, would be a distraction
from cutting CO2 emissions. It must not be.

Instead, it’s precisely these kinds of conversations that ought to be
channeled toward the exact opposite. If serious scientists are looking into
these technologies, and often reluctantly so, perhaps climate change is
indeed worse than most of the polarized public discourse seems to suggest.
That means it’s high time to cut CO₂ emissions in order to avoid the worst,
which might indeed create the dire need to deploy solar geoengineering at
scale.

Gernot Wagner <https://gwagner.com/> writes the Risky Climate column for
Bloomberg Green. He teaches at New York University. His new book,
Geoengineering:
The Gamble <http://www.gwagner.com/GtG>, is out this fall. Follow him on
Twitter: @GernotWagner <https://twitter.com/GernotWagner>. This column does
not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.

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