Elicitation of US and Chinese expert judgments show consistent views on solar geoengineering

Abstract

Expert judgments on solar geoengineering (SG) inform policy decisions and influence public opinions. We performed face-to-face interviews using formal expert elicitation methods with 13 US and 13 Chinese climate experts randomly selected from IPCC authors or supplemented by snowball sampling. We compare their judgments on climate change, SG research, governance, and deployment. In contrast to existing literature that often stress factors that might differentiate China from western democracies on SG, we found few significant differences between quantitative judgments of US and Chinese experts. US and Chinese experts differed on topics, such as desired climate scenario and the preferred venue for international regulation of SG, providing some insight into divergent judgments that might shape future negotiations about SG policy. We also gathered closed-form survey results from 19 experts with >10 publications on SG. Both expert groups supported greatly increased research, recommending SG research funding of ~5% on average (10th–90th percentile range was 1–10%) of climate science budgets compared to actual budgets of <0.3% in 2018. Climate experts chose far less SG deployment in future climate policies than did SG experts.

Assessing learning in low carbon technologies: Toward a more comprehensive approach

“…In a review of efforts to incorporate expert elicitations with IAMs, the authors cite potential shortcomings in expert elicitations, such as challenges to integrate multiple expert elicitations if the predictions conflict, and that often these expert elicitations focus primarily on the United States and European Union countries and overlook other countries, particularly the key low carbon technology markets of China and India (Anadón et al, 2017). This geographical bias is being addressed in more recent studies that include respondents working in these key emerging markets (Z. Dai et al, 2021; Wiser et al, 2021).…”

“…This geographical bias is being addressed in more recent studies that include respondents working in these key emerging markets (Z. Dai et al, 2021;Wiser et al, 2021).…”

Solar geoengineering: The case for an international non‐use agreement

“…A planned field test by the Harvard group over Sweden met significant local resistance from Indigenous people and environmentalists, eventually scuttling the test for now. In short, in some expert circles, solar geoengineering is now seen as a legitimate research topic and potential future climate policy option (Dai et al, 2021).…”

Determining our climate policy future: expert opinions about negative emissions and solar radiation management pathways

“…Our primary contribution is both to report the results of the first expert survey we know of examining the full suite of negative emissions and solar radiation management options (unlike elicitations looking at one specific technology or pathway in isolation, e.g. (Dai et al 2021 ; Vaughan and Gough 2016 )), and to create an established baseline of expert opinion which can serve as useful benchmark by which to evaluate deployment and diffusion, including assumptions embedded into Integrated Assessment Models (Anderson and Jewell 2019 ; Braunreiter et al 2021 ; Pielke and Ritchie 2021 ). We provide original data and analysis about opinions on the complementarity of these options, but also potential risks concerning individual and collective deployment.…”