Dear all, last month there was some discussion on whether to prepare a response to Biermann et al's call for a non-use agreement on solar geoengineering, but the mailing thread became quiet thereafter. Is anyone indeed working on this?
I've spent the weekend looking through and updating some thoughts that I had written down as reaction to a previous Biermann paper. A first, still rough draft is below. If some of my ideas can be useful to existing groups working on a reply, I'd be happy to join your efforts if I can be of help. If however there is no (sufficiently similar) effort ongoing, I'd be glad for anyone who wants to join mine. My aim would be to develop the text into an opinion piece that could be sent, for example, to WIRES review. Since I'm not too much into governance and equality issues, expertise from that corner would be particularly useful, but engagement form all disciplines surrounding SG is welcome! Anyone who is interested to join: contact me ([email protected]) and I'll send you the link to my google drive document. I think it would be great if we could pull together a thorough response with an interdisciplinary group of real SG researchers! Best regards Claudia Wieners (assistant professor climate science, Utrecht/Netherlands) ------------------ DRAFT TEXT --------------------- Call for Solar Geoengineering (SG) research *Intro [to be provided later]* *– what is solar geo, etc* *– why it is controversial * *– remarks about recent campaign by Biermann et al * We currently do not advocate the eventual use of SG - too little is yet known about its benefits, costs and risks - both physical and governmental. We do call for sound, transparent, and critical research of SG. This is for two reasons, which will be elaborated on further below: 1. From what we know, there is a chance that SG, if properly handled, might be able to alleviate climate-induced suffering that could not be averted otherwise. It would be irresponsible to deprive ourselves and future generations of this tool prematurely. 2. Even if (certain schemes of) SG are not viable strategies, they might be falsely viewed as such, especially in a future scenario in which global warming turns out to inflict serious suffering and puts governments under pressure for quick action. In such a scenario, critical research conducted before climate-induced pressure becomes too high, might help to eliminate ineffective or dangerous SG options in time. Whether solar geoengineering will be, or will seem to be, viable in the future is hard to predict, as it depends on future greenhouse gas emissions, the (still uncertain) sensitivity of global warming to greenhouse gas concentrations, and the sensitivity of relevant components of the climate and ecosystems on global warming (e.g. the vulnerability of ice sheets). We cannot predict whether future generations will consider SG necessary. However, we can help them to take a wise decision by developing a sound knowledge base, including both natural and social science questions. Opponents raise several arguments against SG and even research thereof. While these points deserve attention and careful deliberation, in our view they do not justify an effective ban on SG research. However, the underlying concerns should be taken into account when performing and regulating SG research. SG opponents’ view Our view Environmental Risk – SG has environmental risks, and is therefore unacceptable. – SG is not needed. Risks of SG must be weighed against the risk of global warming without SG. We must not prematurely reject options of fighting global warming. “Slippery slope” to deployment? SG research will lead to normalisation and eventual deployment of SG. SG research must be transparent and properly regulated, including mechanisms to avoid “lock-in”. The “moral hazard” problem SG only distracts us from the true solution, namely decarbonisation. The role of SG’s must be restricted to an auxiliary component of climate policy. Governance SG cannot be governed in a fair and inclusive manner. Governmental questions must be part of SG research from the outset to maximise fairness and inclusiveness. “The Genie must remain in the Bottle” We must ban SG before it is too late. The genie is already out of the bottle. We must give future generations the knowledge base to manage it wisely. Risks of solar geoengineering must be balanced against the risk of global warming without solar geoengineering. SG has been suggested to pose environmental risks, to be “messing with nature”. Deliberately intervening in a system we do not fully understand can be seen as irresponsible, even smaller-scale human interventions in natural systems have brought about undesired and /or unforeseen consequences which may be hard to remedy afterwards, e.g. the environmental impacts of the Dutch Delta Works, or in fact global warming. These are valid concerns, but they should be seen in relation with the impact humanity is already inflicting, and continues to inflict, upon the climate. A medical analogy might be useful here. Chemotherapy has severe side effects on a patient’s health. Yet probably few people would argue that deployment or research of chemotherapy should be banned because it is too dangerous, or because it is “fundamentally immoral to poison a patient”. Obviously, no one would apply chemotherapy to a healthy person, but in a cancer patient, it might be that chemotherapy is the lesser evil and saves lives. The doctor needs to balance the risks of the present illness against the risks of the treatment, and deploy treatment in such a way as to minimise harm and maximise the chance of healing. The question therefore should not be “Does SG pose any risks” - of course it does. The correct question is: “Does using, or researching, SG pose more risks (environmental, governmental or otherwise) than rejecting it?”. While the environmental impacts of SG are not fully understood, the same holds for the impact of greenhouse gas emissions. One salient issue is climate sensitivity, defined as the long-term warming per doubling CO2, which is still uncertain (IPCC: climate sensitivity is very likely within 2.0-5.0 degrees). If it is on the high end, even very fast emission reduction and roll-out of CDR cannot avoid peak warming above 1.5 degrees. In the most ambitious scenario in IPCC AR6 SPM fig 4 (scenario “SSP1-19”), the expected global warming is 1.4 degrees, with the very likely (>90%) range exceeds 1.5 degrees; in other words, there is a significant chance that 1.5 degrees will not be met even under this most ambitious scenario. The scenario assumes not only a rapid drop of CO2 emissions from 40Gt/year in 2020 to ca. 24Gt in 2030, but also net negative CO2 emissions by about 2055, requiring substantial use of carbon dioxide removal techniques (industrial or “geoengineering”/CDR), of which we don’t yet know what they will be and how effective they are. In fact, some, though not all, proposals for CDR, e.g ocean alkalisation, also have global environmental impacts and the potential to be deployed by a limited number of states, and should therefore face similar concerns as SG. In addition, even a warming of 1.5 degrees can already have significant impacts (IPCC,1.5deg), and tipping points for ice loss both in Greenland and Antarctica may lie in the range of 1.5-2 degree warming [REF], although limiting the duration of a possible overshoot may mitigate collapse, and uncertainties are large. In short, we do not fully understand the climate impact we are committed to even under the most optimistic decarbonisation + negative emission scenarios. On the other hand, there are indications [REF: Irvine2019] that partly counteracting global warming through SG keeps most properties of the climate system closer to the pre-industrial state (i.e. the state humanity is adapted to) than not using SG. SG might offer an - albeit crude - tool to reduce climate changes we do not fully grasp but which might be disastrous. Rejecting this potential tool a priori is therefore reckless. Careful and critical research is needed to chart its potential benefits, but also its limitations and side effects. SG research should be transparent and properly regulated to avoid unwanted lock-in. Some authors suggest that SG research could “normalise” SG (REF: Biermann, nature) or pave the way to deployment. On the other hand, [REF:Callies] argues that the assumption that research leads to deployment is questionable, as is the premise there are inherent moral reasons to avoid SG. [REF:Smith] points out that from the early, computer-based research phase which SG is in now, to deployment, there are many steps - from small-scale field experiments via larger-scale tests of the albedo effects to experiments large enough to test climate response. Each of these could be used as a moment to pause and evaluate whether the next step should be taken or not. In addition, [REF:Smith] points out that currently, there are no vested (financial) interests associated with SG, as no companies are currently involved with it. Even if SG were to be deployed, its relatively low cost (compared to clean energy and carbon removal) would give it comparatively little financial leverage, reducing the probability of SG distracting funds from other, safer measures and creating lock-in. This is not to say that humanity should not guard against potential lock-in, or blindly proceed from modelling through small- and large-scale experiments to deployment. Scientists arguing for thorough SG research [REF: NAS] also argue for setting up a framework of regulations to determine under which conditions further steps may - or may not - be taken. They explicitly argue for “exit ramps”, i.e. defining conditions under which certain geoengineering schemes should not be pursued further, for example if a scheme proves to have too serious side effects or not effective in reducing climate damage. One partial precedent to this is the London Convention’s passage on Ocean Iron Fertilisation (OIF). [Bierman et al., 2022] hailed this convention as “ban[ning] the future development of harmful technologies, such as [...], or ocean iron fertilization”. However, the London Convention does not bluntly ban scientific research. Rather, it bans deployment for commercial gain, but provides a framework under which a permit for OIF activities for research purposes can be obtained, requiring for example a risk assessment and a commitment to publish results in peer-reviewed journals. A similar framework could regulate (outdoor) SG research. As proposed by NAS, the framework could define a succession of stages from small-scale experiments to large-scale tests, initially banning the later steps, but offering a procedure to assess whether permits for the next stage can be given - similar to the procedures for medical trials. Rather than bluntly banning public funding for all SG research, funding could be made contingent upon adhering to the suggested regulation, as well as standards of transparency, such as open-access publishing (in order to ensure that researchers from poorer countries can access results). Care must be taken to restrict SG’s role to that of an auxiliary component of climate policy. While far from uncontested [REF: e.g. Reynolds review on governance in WIRES], the concern that the prospect of SG might decarbonisation efforts (frequently called “moral hazard”) is a serious one, and care must be applied by researchers and policy makers to prevent this. One mechanism might be the distraction of resources from decarbonisation to SG. Given the fact that SG is likely cheap to implement [REF: e.g. McClellan, Moriyama; anything newer?], developing and deploying it does not need to draw large (financial) resources away from decarbonisation. Note that the NAS suggested to deliberately limit SG funding to a small fraction of the overall climate policy spending [REF]. Another mechanism is psychological, i.e. the fear that (the prospect of) SG reduces the perceived urgency of decarbonisation [Gardiner 2010]. Interestingly, some studies suggest that also the opposite can happen: Participants confronted with information about SG were more eager to support decarbonisation than a control group. These studies are not uncontested, and it is unclear whether the effect on decision makers is similar to that on citizens used in the studies, but it seems at least uncertain whether the prospect of SG really poses a threat to decarbonisation. Recent technological and societal shifts may also reduce the risk that the prospect of SG is used as an argument against decarbonisation. Currently, there is increasing - though not universal - awareness that rapid decarbonisation is needed [REFs - e.g. recent court judgements Germany, Netherlands?]. In addition, decarbonisation now seems more within reach than a decade ago [energy transition commission: mission possible report], thanks to the dramatic (and unforeseen) drop in prices for solar and offshore wind [Grubb et al, “modelling myths”, 2021]. Installed solar cell capacity has increased by a factor 17.6 from 2010 to 2020. By contrast, the prospect of SG will remain highly uncertain for at least a decade. While not denying that vast technological effort and political will are needed to carry out the green transition in time, this recent increase in momentum for decarbonisation will help to make the option to favour uncertain, imperfect SG over decarbonisation less viable. Finally, it is well possible that further research actually eliminates some SG schemes as being infeasible, ineffective or too hazardous. Such results, if presented timely, could in fact counter the risk of seeing SG as alternative and thus increase the urgency of decarbonisation. For the latter effect, SG research needs to remain independent, transparent and impartial. One concern is that hope for SG as a quick fix to the climate problem might be abused by agents with a vested interest in fuel-based power [REF???]. Such actors could set up “research programmes” or think-tanks to produce supportive reports on SG. State-funded, transparent and inclusive research programmes might work as “pre-emptive response” [REF:smith, link see above] against such attempts, deprive ill-intentioned (pseudo)science of their niche and help to correct overly sanguine views. We therefore believe that “moral hazard” is not a sufficient argument against SG research. Nonetheless, researchers should strive to actively counteract the effect, for example, by clearly communicating limitations of SG and the ongoing need for rapid emission reductions. Governmental questions must be part of SG research from the outset to maximise fairness and inclusiveness. Critics of SG point out that no plan exists as yet to make SG research and particularly deployment fair and inclusive. While this is a justified and serious concern, we do not support their conclusion, namely that SG research must be banned for this reason. First, no plan - let alone a fair and inclusive one - exists for governing a world with significant or even severe climate damages but without SG (and as we have argued above, even under vigorous decarbonisation efforts, severe climate damage cannot be excluded). One could as well say: Unless SG opponents provide a convincing plan of how to fairly and inclusively govern a future world without SG even under adverse climate developments, the option of SG cannot responsibly be dropped. While not denying that procedural justice in SG deployment is a large and vital challenge, SG - if its impacts are favourable and side effects limited - might also have the potential to reduce sources of geopolitical tensions, for example climate-driven mass migration. Second, with so much uncertainty about which, if any, type of SG is actually feasible, and possible deployment probably lying decades in the future, it is impossible to have a worked-out plan for its management. Plans for governing SG must evolve along with research on other aspects. Governance must be an integral part of the research agenda, not a prerequisite. Third, deciding to effectively ban SG and SG research is not merely a “default state”: it is an active decision taken now - i.e. in a world where (as [Biermann2022] emotionally pointed out) 660 million people live in extreme poverty, and many states in the global South lack the expertise to make their voice heard in the SG debate. Arguing that the global South potentially will not be given sufficient influence on future decisions on SG seems an odd justification for pushing a ban now, while many countries the global South certainly lack the capacity to raise their voice. In our view, it would be fairer to postpone the decision, for example by imposing a temporary (say, 10 or 20 years) moratorium on SG deployment, while performing thorough, critical, and transparent research to keep the option open and provide a solid knowledge base for future decisions. Meanwhile, every possible effort should be made not only to research how a fair and inclusive government of SG could be achieved, but also to make the research process itself as fair and inclusive as possible. This should include, but not be limited to: - publishing SG research open-access, to ensure researchers from institutes with limited financial means can obtain it - supporting and expanding capacity-building projects such DECIMALS, where researchers from the Global North and South teamed up, those from the North providing climate simulation data and initial guidance such that researchers from the South could start their own research, e.g. on the effect of SG in their regions. Since capacity-building will likely take some time, it is vital to pursue this vigorously now. - other suggestions welcome The Genie is out of the bottle. We must give future generations the knowledge base to manage it wisely. SG opponents argue that SG must be banned before the genie is out of the bottle, i.e. before the idea has gained too much traction [Biermann blog]. However, the genie is already out of the bottle; the idea of SG is out there, and a blunt ban may not suffice to constrain it. Consider the following hypothetical scenario: It is 2050. Humanity has made considerable progress in reducing CO2 emissions, but so far significant negative emissions have not materialised - the suggestions made around 2020 all turned out more difficult to implement than originally thought. Moreover, evidence increasingly points towards climate sensitivity being much higher than thought in IPCC AR6, current estimates are 4.5-6K/doubling CO2. Now India is hit by a record heat wave with wet bulb temperatures exceeding the limits of human endurance for three weeks on end, with hundreds of thousands of deaths. The Indian government is determined to prevent such horrors in the future and announces a national Stratospheric Aerosol Injection effort. India strongly requests the West to help financing the project, seeing their high past emissions, but declares that it will push forward its SAI programme even if the West declines: The 2022 Non-use agreement on SG does not weigh up against the possibility that most of the Indian land becomes uninhabitable. We are not saying that this scenario is likely, but we believe that the chance for such a situation to arise is not vanishingly small. How likely is it that a Non-use agreement could be maintained under increasing pressure from global warming? [Biermann2022] cite cases where technologies (e.g. human cloning) have successfully been banned. However, in those cases there is no increasing need to develop the technology. For SG, this need might - in reality or in perception - increase dramatically as the climate deteriorates. The technical and financial hurdles to perform SG somehow are not great; a reasonably large, technologically advanced country could probably do it within a few years - developing suitable airplanes and injection apparatus for SAI seems less of a technological challenge than building the atomic bomb in WWII. Much more difficult than performing SG at all is performing it properly (which might also mean not using it under certain circumstances). Proper SG not only requires a few smart engineers in a country with sufficient state budget, but a considerable interdisciplinary research effort, public deliberation, and international negotiations. Research would help to identify SG schemes that might work or that would not work, before the climate situation becomes (potentially) so dangerous as to justify acts of desperation. Timely, critical research can give other negotiators a strong base of counterarguments in case some actor wishes to embark upon an ill-considered SG scheme. We cannot make the idea of SG disappear. We do not have the power, or even the right, to prohibit future generations from using SG. But we do have the power to provide them with a sound knowledge base to make their own decisions: the tools to handle the genie that is already out of the bottle. -- 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 view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/geoengineering/CAJUUK5c%3DwRkzkO5rw0OXnVt4oT5Gs_PZnFzAGhtQYjdOraZMzA%40mail.gmail.com.
