Resources

Knowledge and discourse on solar geoengineering has largely emerged within exclusive, Eurocentric circles of intricate scientific research, posing challenges for youth to comprehend, interpret, and develop their own critical perspectives.

To reclaim and empower ownership of the knowledge, Mind Our Future! is building a Solar Geoengineering Resource Toolkit. The toolkit aims to help interested youth develop a comprehensive understanding of the basics solar geoengineering, become familiar with the ongoing debate, and stay informed about the latest developments in research, policy and civil society. Our goal is to empower young people to develop their own well-informed, critical perspectives.

This is an ongoing effort to compile critical resources on solar geoengineering. Any feedback or contributions to this resource list are appreciated.

For questions, please contact mindourfuturegroup@gmail.com.

FAQ

What is solar geoengineering?

Climate geoengineering is the “deliberate large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment to counteract anthropogenic climate change” (IPCC, 2014).

Solar geoengineering is “the intentional modification of the earth’s shortwave radiative budget with the aim of reducing warming” (IPCC, 2014).

Why is solar geoengineering being discussed?

Most IPCC scenarios that successfully limit warming to 1.5 °C count on an overshoot of the emissions threshold, with negative emissions to lower it back down by 2100 (IPCC, 2014).

An outlet of the scientific climate community has pursued research on the compensation of these emissions via “technologies operating on a large scale that aim to deliberately alter the climate system in order to alleviate the impacts of climate change” (IPCC, 2014).

Solar geoengineering has been increasingly recognized, researched, and developed within both private and public circles of science, academia, business, and government as a potential strategy to address emissions overshoot scenarios.

Who is researching solar geoengineering?

The majority of research to date has been produced by scientists in the Global North (mostly the US and the UK), and is done mostly via think tanks, institutes, and private research councils.

Solar geoengineering is gaining attention at international climate negotiations, within national climate strategies, and across the climate governance discourse.

What does a critical approach mean?

The material development of solar geoengineering technologies presents serious concerns for achieving a just climate future. Such intervention would raise new challenges for global democratic governance, require perpetual geoengineering of the atmosphere, and poses unknowable impacts to ecosystems and societies.

The normalization of solar geoengineering within dominant climate discourses places focus on false solutions and excludes perspectives. False solutions bring the attention away from necessary emissions reduction and system transformation. Its normalization in climate talks excludes many relationships with earth and perspectives on climate change.

Efforts to address both the the material and discursive inequities that underlie knowledge production on solar geoengineering normalize mainly Western conceptions of justice and frameworks for inclusion.

Critical Developments

• In 2010, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), with agreement by 193 governments, adopted a landmark moratorium on climate-related geoengineering. The CBD decision pointed to the uncertainties and risks of such developments and emphasized the known solutions to climate change, setting the stage for the international governance of solar geoengineering.

• In 2021 the Saami Council, representing Saami Indigenous peoples’ organizations in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia, sent an open letter to Harvard University to call off its Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment (SCoPEx) in which test flights related to research and development of solar geoengineering technologies were planned over Saami Indigenous territory in Sweden.

• In 2022, more than 60 senior climate scientists and global governance experts launched the Non-Use Agreement Initiative on solar geoengineering calling for signatories on an open letter to the international community to stop the development and potential use of solar geoengineering. Today, more than 450 academics from more than 60 countries support the call for a non-use agreement.

• In 2023, Mexico became the first country to place a national ban on solar geoengineering experimentation in response to a US-based startup’s unapproved launch of a solar geoengineering balloon over the Mexican state of Baja.

  A report sponsored by UNEP and co-authored by scholars from the Degrees Initiative called for the proliferation of ‘just’ research on SG, that initiative that seeks to “put developing countries at the center of the SG conversation” (The Degrees Initiative, 2023). The report normalizes within UN governance frameworks the role of technical research and a prioritization of climate stability.

  In a report by the UN Human Rights Council, the advisory committee cautioned that such technologies “could seriously interfere with the enjoyment of human rights for millions and perhaps billions of people. The magnitude of the potential negative socioeconomic and human rights impacts is currently incommensurable with any hypothetical benefits” (Human Rights Council Advisory Committee, 2023).

  In June, the European Commission released in a statement that it does not consider solar geoengineering a solution to climate change as it does not address the root causes of climate change and it presents an unacceptable level of risk for humans and the environment.

  Ahead of COP28, the African Committee of Environmental Ministers (AMCEN) expressed concern over the promotion of solar geoengineering technologies and called for a non-use governance mechanism, opposing the international pressure to persuade an African opinion that is favorable of research on solar geoengineering.

• In 2024, Switzerland proposed a draft resolution on solar radiation modification, seeking the establishment of an ‘expert group.’ This could potentially legitimize solar geoengineering technologies and undermine existing decisions made by the CBD and LC/LP. The resolution attempts to bring solar geoengineering to the agenda table at the Sixth Session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-6).