14 Promises of Climate Engineering after Neoliberalism

Abstract

The apparent, if uncertain, rejection of neoliberalism manifested by the election of Donald Trump in the US (alongside the slim, but clear majority for Brexit in the UK, and a growing racist and protectionist nationalism across Europe) necessitates renewed analysis of the future of both promises of technical fixes to climate change, such as carbon capture and storage (CCS), carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and solar radiation management (SRM) (in this chapter collectively referred to as climate engineering), and the potential future hegemonic political regimes that may replace neoliberalism. Drawing on a cultural political economy analysis of the co-evolution of political regimes and promises of technical fixes to climate change (Markusson et al. 2017), we here discuss what the current moment of radical destabilisation might augur. The election of Trump indicates a potential unsettling of an established dynamic whereby promises of technical fixes to climate change co-evolved with, and imperfectly supported, the neoliberal power regime and its preferred marketbased solutions to the climate change problem. We identify two key and interacting dialectics, between neoliberalism and illiberalism, and between continued neoliberal (but illiberally challenged) US hegemony and budding China-centred liberalism 2.0. Both these dialectics appear conducive to prolonged attention to the promise of climate engineering, as talk and research, or even as limited deployment.

Life in the hole: practices and emotions in the cultural political economy of mitigation deterrence

“…We then also discuss how the practices of the cultural political economy of mitigation deterrence co-evolve. For this, we build on McLaren and Markusson [ 32 ] who reviewed the history of low-carbon technology promises, and their co-evolution with modelling and climate policy, and showed that NETs is only one in a series of technology promises that have undermined climate action. Finally, we briefly speculate on how these practices might fare under a change away from the current neoliberal political regime.…”

“…An analysis of the history of climate science and policy shows that mitigation deterrence has had many previous manifestations, and is not just an issue for NETs. McLaren and Markusson [ 32 ] mapped the history of climate policy in five phases, and related this to developments in modelling and the prominence of a range of technology promises, drawing mainly on international and UK material. Each phase has two distinct characteristics: a change in conceptualisation of the overarching goal of avoiding dangerous climate change, or ‘target framing’; and shifting promises of future technology deployment.…”

“…There may be a resurgence in low carbon innovation, maybe induced through Green New Deal-like initiatives under a more progressive regime. Or, the current trend towards nationalist protectionism may mean governments, for example the Chinese one, seeing merit in investing in technological protection of their own nation from climate disasters—though there may also be resurgent SRM under protectionist regimes [ 32 ].…”

Whose climate intervention? Solar geoengineering, fractions of capital, and hegemonic strategy

“…Yet, as we show below, fossil fuel interests and climate denial organizations are now largely absent from SG policy-planning, while prominent criticism of the technology continues to link it to the fossil fuel industry (ETC Group et al 2017;Schneider & Fuhr 2020;Muffett & Feit 2019). These critiques are well-founded, as SAI logically serves the interests of the fossil fuel industry in its promise to extend fossil capitalism (Gunderson et al 2019;Markusson et al 2020). However, they tend to overlook many of the more subtle ways the technology has advanced and is now promoted by climate scientists, environmental NGOs, 'green' philanthropists, and Silicon Valley ecomodernists -the 'climate capitalist' policy network (Newell & Paterson 2010;Sapinski 2015Sapinski , 2016.…”