Fast,cheap, and imperfect? US public opinion about solar geoengineering

ABSTRACT

Solar geoengineering, which seeks to cool the planet by reflecting a small fraction of sunlight back into space, has drawn the attention of scientists and policymakers as climate change remains unabated. Unlike mitigation, solar geoengineering could quickly and cheaply lower global temperatures. It is also imperfect. Its environmental impacts remain unpredictable, and its low cost and immediate effects may result in ‘moral hazard,’ potentially crowding out costly mitigation efforts. There is little understanding about how the public will respond to such tradeoffs. To address this, a 1000-subject nationally representative poll focused on solar geoengineering was conducted as part of the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES) of the US electorate in October–November 2016. The importance that individuals place on solar geoengineering’s speed and cost predicts their support for it, but there is little to no relationship between their concerns about its shortcomings and support for its research and use. Acquiescence bias appears to be an important factor for attitudes around solar geoengineering and moral hazard.     

Framing of Geoengineering Affects Support for Climate Change Mitigation

The growing recognition that climate change mitigation alone will be inadequate has led scientists and policymakers to discuss climate geoengineering. An experiment with a US sample found, contrary to previous research, that reading about geoengineering did not reduce conservatives’ skepticism about the existence of anthropogenic climate change. Moreover, depending on how it is framed, geoengineering can reduce support for mitigation among both conservatives and non-conservatives. When geoengineering is framed as a major solution, people worry less about climate change, leading to reduced mitigation support. When framed as disastrous, people perceived geoengineering as riskier, also leading to a decrease in mitigation support. A more moderate framing of geoengineering as a partial solution is less susceptible to moral hazard effects. Overall, results suggest that geoengineering will not lessen political polarization over anthropogenic climate change, and could undercut support for mitigation efforts. Instead, framing geoengineering as a small piece to solving a big puzzle seems to be the best strategy to weaken this potential moral hazard.     

碳中和目标下海洋地球工程的国际法规制和政策启示

碳中和目标的实现需要充分开发海洋碳汇的潜力。海洋施肥、人工海洋上升流、海洋碱化是三种旨在提升海洋碳汇的地球工程技术。本文从海洋地球工程活动合法性、海洋环境保护义务和气候变化公约体系三个方面论述海洋地球工程的国际法框架。首先,《伦敦倾倒公约》和《伦敦议定书》中关于“倾倒”的定义不适用于海洋地球工程活动涉及的以吸收二氧化碳为目的投放铁或碱性物粉末或放置管道的行为。《关于规制以海洋施肥和其他以海洋地球工程活动为目的投放物质的伦敦议定书修正案》将海洋施肥活动限制在通过了完整的环境影响评价的“合理科学研究”范围内。目前这一限制不适用于其他海洋地球工程技术,但随着对其他技术研究的深入,修正案限制范围有可能会扩大。其次,《联合国海洋法公约》和《生物多样性公约》中有关海洋环境和海洋生态保护的公约条款适用于海洋地球工程活动,其中有关环境影响评价的义务与海洋地球工程的发展密切相关。再次,《联合国气候变化框架公约》以及《巴黎协定》中关于国家自主贡献的规定为实施海洋地球工程提供了鼓励性规则。最后,本文就中国关于该技术的实验活动以及未来应用该技术的场景下涉及的遵约和治理问题进行展望。当前不与国际法冲突的发展模式是进行小规模试验研究、建立海洋碳汇方法学标准、核算海洋碳汇经济价值,推动海洋碳汇换算核证自愿减排量进入碳市场交易;在实践中鼓励将开发海洋碳汇与低碳渔业养殖、陆海统筹增汇等方法相结合。未来能否大规模实施海洋地球工程技术取决于对海洋生态环境相关影响研究的进展。     

Active Amplification of the Terrestrial Albedo to Mitigate Climate Change: An Exploratory Study

To date, international efforts to mitigate climate change have focussed on reducing emissions of greenhouse gases in the energy, transportation and agriculture sectors, and on sequestering atmospheric carbon dioxide in forests. Here, the potential to complement these efforts by actions to enhance the reflectance of solar insolation by the human settlement and grassland components of the Earth's terrestrial surface is explored. Preliminary estimates derived using a static two dimensional radiative transfer model indicate that such efforts could amplify the overall planetary albedo enough to offset the current global annual average level of radiative forcing caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases by as much as 30% or 0.76 Wm^{− 2}. Terrestrial albedo amplification may thus extend, by about 25 years, the time available to advance the development and use of low-emission energy conversion technologies which ultimately remain essential to mitigate long-term climate change. While a scoping analysis indicates the technical feasibility of sufficiently enhancing human settlement and grassland albedos to levels needed to achieve reductions in radiative forcing projected here, additional study is required on two fronts. Firstly, the modelled radiative forcing reductions are static estimates. As they would generate climate feedbacks, more detailed dynamic climate modelling would be needed to confirm the stationary value of the radiative forcing reduction that would result from land surface albedo amplification. Secondly, land surface albedo amplification schemes may have important economic and environmental impacts. Accurate ex ante impact assessments would be required to validate global implementation of related measures as a viable mitigation strategy.     

De facto governance: how authoritative assessments construct climate engineering as an object of governance

ABSTRACT

Analyses of climate engineering (CE) governance have accelerated in the last decade. A key claim is that CE remains a largely ungoverned space, with shared norms, institutional arrangements, and formal rules to regulate CE not yet present. In contrast, here it is argued that de facto governance of CE is underway, discernible in an ordering of this nascent field of inquiry by unacknowledged sources of steering. One key source of de facto governance is analyzed: high-level ‘authoritative assessments’ of CE. The focus is on how these assessments are constructing CE as an object of governance through demarcating and categorizing this emerging field of inquiry, and how this contributes to normalizing and institutionalizing CE research (and CE research communities). Scrutinizing the distinct nature and political implications of de facto governance, particularly of novel and speculative technological trajectories not yet subject to formal steering, remains a key task for governance scholars.     

Sleepwalking into lock-in? Avoiding wrongs to future people in the governance of solar radiation management research

ABSTRACT

Arguments are advanced for two ways in which we can avoid the reckless endangerment of future people in the governance of solar radiation management (SRM) research, which could happen through lock-in to SRM deployment from research. SRM research is at an early stage, one at which the mechanisms of lock-in could start to operate. However, lock-in fit to endanger future people could be slowed or stopped through targeted governance. Governance of SRM research that does not include provisions to detect, slow, or stop lock-in fails the test of an intergenerationally adequate precautionary principle, and research governed without these provisions cannot itself be justified as a precaution against the impacts of climate change.     

Strategic implications of counter-geoengineering: Clash or cooperation?

Solar geoengineering has received increasing attention as an option to temporarily stabilize global temperatures. A key concern is that heterogeneous preferences over the optimal amount of cooling combined with low deployment costs may allow the country with the strongest incentive for cooling, the so-called free-driver, to impose a substantial externality on the rest of the world. We analyze whether the threat of counter-geoengineering technologies capable of negating the climatic effects of solar geoengineering can overcome the free-driver problem and tilt the game in favour of international cooperation. Our game-theoretical model of countries with asymmetric preferences allows for a rigorous analysis of the strategic interaction surrounding solar geoengineering and counter-geoengineering. We find that counter-geoengineering prevents the free-driver outcome, but not always with benign effects. The presence of counter-geoengineering leads to either a climate clash where countries engage in a non-cooperative escalation of opposing climate interventions (negative welfare effect), a moratorium treaty where countries commit to abstain from either type of climate intervention (indeterminate welfare effect), or cooperative deployment of solar geoengineering (positive welfare effect). We show that the outcome depends crucially on the degree of asymmetry in temperature preferences between countries.     

Revisiting the “Ozone Hole” Metaphor: From Observational Window to Global Environmental Threat

In 1985, just over 30 years ago, the “ozone hole” made its appearance in the press as a truly global environmental threat. As one of the most important environmental issues of the twentieth century, the “ozone hole” is also a remarkable metaphorical, visual, and imaginary construction. This essay examines the historical trajectory of the famous “ozone hole” from its birth within the astronomical community at the beginning of the twentieth century to its contemporary framing as a global environmental threat. The article provides evidence why metaphors constitute a valuable object of historically informed studies of scientific practice, and shows in particular how metaphorical landscapes shift over time, mapping at the same time larger social and political developments. The essay ends by showing how scientific images and metaphorical framings interact and how they shape scientific and popular discourse on nature, as well as our understanding of the global environment.