Accelerating the carbon cycle: the ethics of enhanced weathering

Abstract

Enhanced weathering, in comparison to other geoengineering measures, creates the possibility of a reduced cost, reduced impact way of decreasing atmospheric carbon, with positive knock-on effects such as decreased oceanic acidity. We argue that ethical concerns have a place alongside empirical, political and social factors as we consider how to best respond to the critical challenge that anthropogenic climate change poses. We review these concerns, considering the ethical issues that arise (or would arise) in the large-scale deployment of enhanced weathering. We discuss post-implementation scenarios, failures of collective action, the distribution of risk and externalities and redress for damage. We also discuss issues surrounding 'dirty hands' (taking conventionally immoral action to avoid having to take action that is even worse), whether enhanced weathering research might present a moral hazard, the importance of international governance and the notion that the implementation of large-scale enhanced weathering would reveal problematic hubris. Ethics and scientific research interrelate in complex ways: some ethical considerations caution against research and implementation, while others encourage them. Indeed, the ethical perspective encourages us to think more carefully about how, and what types of, geoengineering should be researched and implemented.

CO2 Removal With Enhanced Weathering and Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement: Potential Risks and Co-benefits for Marine Pelagic Ecosystems

“…There is yet little public funding, generally no established legal framework, and no social acceptance to ramp up any NET to the necessary scale (Oschlies and Klepper, 2017;Braun et al, 2018;Nemet et al, 2018). The public reservations are justified since NETs raise ethical concerns (Lin, 2013;Lawford-Smith and Currie, 2017;Shue, 2017;Lenzi, 2018) and may be associated with side effects for the Earth system (Keller et al, 2014;Fuss et al, 2018;Gattuso et al, 2018). However, since NETs will very likely become key tools for keeping global warming below 2 • C it is vital to assess their associated environmental risks before their initiation (Oschlies and Klepper, 2017).…”

The ethics of negative emissions

“…As Lawford-Smith and Currie point out [19], side effects of EW may be displaced onto those downstream, especially in the tropics where EW may be most effective, but where there is already great underprivilege. But such a bet also concerns the distribution of risk, since a bet on NETs might be unjust even if it worked.…”

Blurred Lines: The Ethics and Policy of Greenhouse Gas Removal at Scale

“…If this were the case for GGR, future generations could be responsible for maintaining projects indefinitely, as GGR won't address the underlying causes of unsustainable fossil fuel combustion (Jamieson, 2013;Preston, 2013Preston, , 2016Wong, 2014;Lawford-Smith and Currie, 2017). As stated by (Wong (2014) p. 190), GGR should be seen not as a oneoff event, but as a "temporally-extended process."…”

“…For example, some GGR proposals, such as biomass with carbon capture (BECCS) and Enhanced Weathering (EW), could require large amounts of land in tropical areas with historically low emissions, and there are understandable concerns regarding how fair this would be on the local inhabitants (McLaren, 2016;Lawford-Smith and Currie, 2017). Temporal justice is also potentially a problem: both GGR and SRM arouse questions of intergenerational equity (Wong, 2014), because assuming that we can emit what we like now and simply rely on negative emissions later may constitute an unacceptable transfer of risk onto future generations (Hansen et al, 2017;Lawford-Smith and Currie, 2017;Shue, 2017). Concern over techno-fixes is not exclusively the domain of geoengineering: many mitigation options have been critiqued on the same grounds, especially large supply-side proposals such as nuclear power or big hydroelectric dams.…”