Engaging the Global South on climate engineering research

Winickoff, David E.; Flegal, Jane A.; Asrat, Asfawossen

doi:10.1038/nclimate2632

Cited by 85 publications

(69 citation statements)

References 41 publications

(34 reference statements)

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“…In reviewing the literature on the social acceptability of SRM, we have found that the bulk of the research devoted to the assessment of geoengineering has been conducted in western, industrialized countries (Winickoff et al 2015); as we assert above, a cross-cultural perspective is needed on this issue. We therefore surveyed public perceptions of SRM in six countries with distinct economic, political, and cultural backgrounds.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Beliefs and values explain international differences in perception of solar radiation management: insights from a cross-country survey

et al. 2017

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Solar radiation management (SRM) aims to counteract the negative consequences of global warming and is considered for deployment in the event that mitigation and adaptation efforts appear insufficient. However, because the potential ecological and political side effects of SRM are not well understood, and because SRM will cross national boundaries, an international research perspective on the general public's perception of this technology is required. We conducted an online survey on the general public's perception and acceptance of SRM in Canada, China, Germany, Switzerland, the UK, and the USA. Our findings confirmed the need for an international perspective, as we found several cross-country differences. Chinese respondents, for example, indicated greater acceptance for SRM than their North American and European counterparts. Moreover, results of regression analyses on acceptance of SRM by country revealed that lower acceptability ratings for SRM in Canada and Europe were mostly related to stronger beliefs that SRM tampers with nature. Chinese respondents, by contrast, were more accepting of SRM when they held stronger beliefs that it may reduce the motivation to adopt burdensome climate change mitigation efforts. Although our researchand previous studies-suggest that opposition to SRM remains, dismissing the technology entirely on these grounds and without conducting a careful, cross-national, and Climatic Change transdisciplinary decision-support process to set up an international policy regime seems premature as people from countries that are less prepared to mitigate and adapt to climate change seem to be more supportive of SRM.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Beliefs and values explain international differences in perception of solar radiation management: insights from a cross-country survey

et al. 2017

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“…The aim is to show whether CE experts are more receptive or more optimistic, whether they advocate a stronger reduction in mitigation levels, and whether their perception is prone to biases similar to those identifiable in laypersons. In contrast to earlier work (Bellamy et al, 2013;Bellamy & Healey, 2018;Himmelsbach, 2017;Mercer, 2014;Winickoff et al, 2015), our sample is very large, assembling 253 international experts. This enables us to assess expert perceptions more broadly than would be the case with only a small number of experts.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 84%

“…1 In this regard, studies on expert opinions (Bellamy, Chilvers, Vaughan, & Lenton, 2013;Bellamy & Healey, 2018;Himmelsbach, 2017;Mercer, 2014;Winickoff, Flegal, & Asrat, 2015) have found that stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), which comes under the heading of RM, is perceived as the most problematic technology, while CDR approaches are evaluated more positively. Experts rate the risks involved as high, especially with SAI, and generally emphasize that decarbonization should be the main priority.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do climate engineering experts display moral-hazard behaviour?

2018

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Discourse analyses and expert interviews about climate engineering (CE) report high levels of reflectivity about the technologies' risks and challenges, implying that CE experts are unlikely to display moral hazard behaviour, i.e. a reduced focus on mitigation. This has, however, not been empirically tested. Within CE experts we distinguish between experts for radiation management (RM) and for carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and analyse whether RM and CDR experts display moral hazard behaviour. For RM experts, we furthermore look at whether they agree to laboratory and field research, and how they perceive the risks and benefits of one specific RM method, Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI). Analyzing experts' preferences for climate-policy options, we do not find a reduction of the mitigation budget, i.e. moral hazard, for RM or CDR experts compared to climate-change experts who are neither experts for RM nor for CDR. In particular, the budget shares earmarked for RM are low. The perceptions of risks and benefits of SAI are similar for RM and climate-change experts. Despite the difference in knowledge and expertise, experts and laypersons share an understanding of the benefits, while their perceptions of the risks differ: experts perceive the risks to be larger. Terms of use: Documents in Key policy insights. Experts surveyed all prioritize mitigation over carbon dioxide removal and in particular radiation management. . In the views of the experts, SAI is not a viable climate policy option within the next 25 years, and potentially beyond, as global field-testing (which would be a precondition for long-term deployment) is widely rejected. . In the case of SAI, greater knowledge leads to increased awareness of the uncertainty and complexity involved. Policy-makers need to be aware of this relationship and the potential misconceptions among laypersons with limited knowledge, and should follow the guidelines about communicating risks and uncertainties of CE that experts have been advised to follow.ARTICLE HISTORY

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“…Aligned with this, early evidence from a public engagement exercise relating to solar geoengineering with environmental practitioners in the Global South highlighted a broader set of concerns relating to equitable participation in debates around research and deployment of novel technologies (Winickoff et al 2015). The analysis revealed that participants were persistently concerned that models were insufficiently credible to produce meaningful knowledge about the equity implications of solar geoengineering research and deployment, both because of a lack of trust in scientific endeavors in which they had little say, and a distrust in the credibility of models to say anything useful at temporal and spatial scales that were seen to be most pertinent to managing and reducing vulnerabilities.…”

Section: Equity As a Moral Imperative To Realize 15°c: Does The End mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The analysis revealed that participants were persistently concerned that models were insufficiently credible to produce meaningful knowledge about the equity implications of solar geoengineering research and deployment, both because of a lack of trust in scientific endeavors in which they had little say, and a distrust in the credibility of models to say anything useful at temporal and spatial scales that were seen to be most pertinent to managing and reducing vulnerabilities. Participants also emphasized broader concerns around moral responsibility, historical global injustices, the ability to be included in, and benefit from, technological development, and concerns around lack of agency and self-determination in determining innovation pathways (Winickoff et al 2015, see also Carr and Preston, forthcoming).…”

Section: Equity As a Moral Imperative To Realize 15°c: Does The End mentioning

confidence: 99%

Evoking equity as a rationale for solar geoengineering research? Scrutinizing emerging expert visions of equity

Flegal

Gupta

2017

Int Environ Agreements

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This paper examines how notions of equity are being evoked by expert advocates of more research into solar geoengineering. We trace how specific understandings of equity figure centrally-although not always explicitly-in these expert visions. We find that understandings of equity in such ''vanguard visions'' are narrowly conceived as epistemic challenges, answerable by (more) scientific analysis. Major concerns about equity are treated as empirical matters, requiring scientific assessment of feasibility, risks, or ''win-win'' distributive outcomes and optimizations, with concurrent calls to delimit risk or reduce scientific uncertainties. We argue that such epistemic framings sidestep, inter alia, the inequality in resources available to diverse non-experts-including the ''vulnerable'' evoked in expert visions-to project their own equity perspectives onto imagined technological pathways of the future. These may include concerns relating to moral or historical responsibility and/or lack of agency in shaping the directions of innovation. We conclude that the performative power and political implications of specific expert visions of equity, evoked as a rationale to undertake solar geoengineering research, require continued scrutiny.

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Engaging the Global South on climate engineering research

Cited by 85 publications

References 41 publications

Beliefs and values explain international differences in perception of solar radiation management: insights from a cross-country survey

Beliefs and values explain international differences in perception of solar radiation management: insights from a cross-country survey

Do climate engineering experts display moral-hazard behaviour?

Evoking equity as a rationale for solar geoengineering research? Scrutinizing emerging expert visions of equity

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