Contesting the climate

Bas, Muhammet Ali; Mahajan, Aseem

doi:10.1007/s10584-020-02758-7

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…89 In addition, SAI parallels nuclear weapons as a technology with planetary-altering capabilities that has already sparked concerns about who will control and potentially use the technology. 90 A key element of preemptive security thinking and practice in the nuclear context during the Cold War was racing to control and secure the technology, 91 and governance of nuclear weapons technology is centralised, hierarchical, and hyper-securitised despite the open, cooperative, and science-led governance of the technology envisioned by its developers. 92 SAI governance differs technologically and historically but could encounter similar dynamics that merit more extensive consideration given already existing concerns about domination of SAI by the Global North and its potential to contribute to inter-state conflict.…”

Section: Preemptive Security and Prospects For Unilateral Deployment ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Considering stratospheric aerosol injections beyond an environmental frame: The intelligible ‘emergency’ techno-fix and preemptive security

Young

2023

Eur. j. of int. secur.

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Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI), is often referred to as a ‘Plan B’ if mitigation strategies to reduce emissions fail and the need to rapidly reduce global temperatures becomes urgent. In theory, SAI would help buy more time to bring carbon and other emissions down while also cooling or keeping the planet below the threshold for dangerous warming, though it is not a solution to the problem of climate change in itself. What little attention it has received in International Relations (IR) is usually focused on the need for governance of the technology and assumes that development and use of the technology will be driven primarily by vulnerability to climate impacts. Through an analysis of common security assumptions and preemptive security framings the article shows that while current assessments of SAI focus on the technology’s environmental impact, broader political and security dynamics, particularly the desire to render climate change more intelligible as a security problem with a solution may have substantial influence on how the technology is used and by whom.

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Section: Preemptive Security and Prospects For Unilateral Deployment ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Considering stratospheric aerosol injections beyond an environmental frame: The intelligible ‘emergency’ techno-fix and preemptive security

Young

2023

Eur. j. of int. secur.

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“…Both scenarios are interesting from a political and climate modeling perspective. These examples have important implications for international security (Bas & Mahajan, 2020). As the level of short-lived climate forcers (e.g., the global methane concentration or spatially resolved concentration of black carbon) can be prescribed as an input to many climate models, only limited modeling workload is necessary.…”

Section: C) Counter-geoengineering [Regional Emergency Reactive]mentioning

confidence: 99%

18 Politically relevant solar geoengineering scenarios

Lockley

Tilmes

et al. 2022

SESMO

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Solar geoengineering, also known as Solar Radiation Modification (SRM), has been proposed to alter Earth’s radiative balance to reduce the effects of anthropogenic climate change. SRM has been identified as a research priority, as it has been shown to effectively reduce surface temperatures, while substantial uncertainties remain around side effects and impacts. Global modeling studies of SRM have often relied on idealized scenarios to understand the physical processes of interventions and their widespread impacts. These extreme or idealized scenarios are not directly policy-relevant and are often physically implausible (such as imposing global solar reduction to counter the warming of an instantaneous quadrupling of CO2). The climatic and ecological impacts of politically relevant and potentially plausible SRM approaches have rarely been modeled and assessed. Nevertheless, commentators and policymakers often falsely assume that idealized or extreme scenarios are proposed solutions to climate change. This paper proposes 18 scenarios that appear to be broadly plausible from political and Earth System perspectives and encompass futures that could be both warnings or perhaps desirable. We place these scenarios into four groups following broader strategic contexts: (1) Global Management; (2) Regional Emergencies; (3) Coordinated Regional Interventions; and (4) Reactive Global Interventions. For each scenario, relevant model experiments are proposed. Some may be performed with existing setups of global climate models, while others require further specification. Developing and performing these model experiments – and assessing likely resulting impacts on society and ecosystems – would be essential to inform public debate and policymakers on the real-world issues surrounding SRM.

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“…Another line of inquiry focuses on "countergeoengineering" interventions. This research explores whether solar geoengineering could spark conflicting interventions by countries wanting different temperatures, and seeks to understand free-driver effects-when uncoordinated unilateral actions result in more geoengineering than is optimal (Parker et al, 2018;Heyen et al, 2019;Abatayo et al, 2020;Bas and Mahajan, 2020).…”

Section: Background: Solar Geoengineering Through the Lens Of Conflictmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental Peacebuilding and Solar Geoengineering

Buck

2022

Front. Clim.

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Solar geoengineering, or reflecting incoming sunlight to cool the planet, has been viewed by international relations and governance scholars as an approach that could exacerbate conflict. It has not been examined through the framework of environmental peacebuilding, which examines how and when environmental challenges can lead to cooperation rather than conflict. This article argues that scholars should treat the link between solar geoengineering and conflict as a hypothesis rather than a given, and evenly examine both hypotheses: that solar geoengineering could lead to conflict, and that it could lead to peace. The article examines scenarios in which geoengineering may lead to negative peace—peace defined as the absence of conflict—and then applies a theoretical framework developed by environmental peacebuilding scholars to look at how solar geoengineering could relate to three trajectories of environmental peacebuilding. A peace lens for solar geoengineering matters for research and policy right now, because focusing narrowly on conflict in both research and policy might miss opportunities to understand and further scenarios for environmental peacebuilding. The paper concludes with suggestions for how research program managers, funders, and policymakers could incorporate environmental peacebuilding aims into their work.

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Contesting the climate

Cited by 8 publications

References 39 publications

Considering stratospheric aerosol injections beyond an environmental frame: The intelligible ‘emergency’ techno-fix and preemptive security

Considering stratospheric aerosol injections beyond an environmental frame: The intelligible ‘emergency’ techno-fix and preemptive security

18 Politically relevant solar geoengineering scenarios

Environmental Peacebuilding and Solar Geoengineering

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