Solar Geoengineering and Democracy

Horton, Joshua; Reynolds, Jesse L.; Buck, Holly Jean; Callies, Daniel Edward; Schäfer, Stefan; Keith, David W.; Rayner, Steve

doi:10.1162/glep_a_00466

Cited by 66 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Nonetheless, some factors need to be addressed to better understand the feasibility of SG in relation to institutional soft constraints. First, democracies are not incompatible with SG (Horton et al., ). Rather, they are well‐suited for providing environment‐related goods in the public interest (Bernauer and Böhmelt, ) like research and deployment of SG.…”

Section: Constraints To Sg Feasibilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sulfur in the Sky with Diamonds: An Inquiry into the Feasibility of Solar Geoengineering

Grasso

2019

Global Policy

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Solar geoengineering (SG) is considered a promising, albeit controversial, climate engineering technology to help reduce predicted global warming. However, the complexity of SG raises serious doubts about its political practicability. The objective of this article is to investigate this technology's feasibility, a fundamental dimension of said practicability. Feasibility is here understood as a political property: the higher the feasibility of a state of affairs ranks, the greater its eventual political practicability. According to this perspective, the less SG clashes with economic, institutional, and moral soft constraints, the more feasible it becomes, and hence the greater its political practicability. An analysis of economic and institutional soft constraints points to a high degree of SG feasibility. This feasibility is, however, limited by the perceived non‐bearable moral costs which SG involves. Given the greater weight of moral soft constraints, SG's overall feasibility is therefore low. Based on these indications, the article offers suggestions for lessening SG's friction with soft constraints, especially with the highly sensitive moral ones, with the aim of increasing this technology's feasibility. On the basis of this heightened feasibility, the paper concludes with policy recommendations which improves the practicability of SG.

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Section: Constraints To Sg Feasibilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“… See for instance, Corry, , Frumhoff and Stephens, , Horton and Reynolds, , Horton et al., , Morrow et al., , Nicholson et al., , Rayner et al., and Zürn and Schäfer, . …”

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confidence: 99%

Sulfur in the Sky with Diamonds: An Inquiry into the Feasibility of Solar Geoengineering

Grasso

2019

Global Policy

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“…My co-authors and I have argued elsewhere that the claim that SAI is inherently undemocratic or incompatible with democracy is unfounded. 32 I'll provide a significantly abridged summary here. Both of the above points that buttress the antidemocratic claim are controversial.…”

Section: The Normative Premisementioning

confidence: 99%

The Slippery Slope Argument against Geoengineering Research

Callies

2018

J Applied Philosophy

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With the lack of progress there has been so far on climate change, some have begun researching the potential of geoengineering to allay future climatic harms. However, others contend that such research should be abandoned. One of the most‐cited reasons as to why research into geoengineering should be abandoned is the idea that such research sits at the top of slippery slope. The Slippery Slope Argument warns that even mere research into geoengineering will create institutional momentum, ultimately leading to the deployment of a technology that is untested and perhaps morally objectionable. This article clearly lays out the Slippery Slope Argument against geoengineering research and analyses its premises. I claim that both the empirical premise – that research will inevitably lead to deployment – and the normative premise – that we have decisive moral reasons to avoid deployment – are questionable. The main conclusion of the article is that while we should be cognizant of the potential for research to lead to undesirable deployment scenarios, engaging in research need not necessarily lead inexorably to deployment. While insufficient to ground a moratorium on research, the Slippery Slope Argument points to the need for regulation and oversight in order to prevent undesirable deployment.

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“…Deployment of solar geoengineering would have global effects, leading to the question of how one might govern use of these technologies (e.g., Parson, 2013;Parson and Ernst, 2013;Rayner et al, 2013;Bodansky, 2013;Barrett, 2014;Horton and Reynolds, 2016;Reynolds, 2016, Horton et al 2018, Nicholson et al 2018, Horton and Keith 2019. The international community has agreed upon a limit of 1.5 to 2°C rise in global mean temperature above preindustrial levels (UNFCCC, 2015), but 1.5°C could be surpassed within the next 1-2 decades (IPCC, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Particularly relevant herein, Barrett (2014) recognizes that solar geoengineering would involve more than a single decision, and Parson and Ernst (2013) describe the need for "keeping decision-making linked to scientific understanding … and protecting scientific deliberations and judgments from political pressures." This reliance on technical expertise has led some to question if solar geoengineering is compatible with democracy (Szerszynski et al 2013, Hulme 2014), a point countered both by Heyward and Rayner (2015) and by Horton et al (2018). Without a better sense of the content and character of technical decisions, however, it is difficult to fully gauge their political implications for governance of solar geoengineering.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Technical characteristics of a solar geoengineering deployment and implications for governance

et al. 2019

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Consideration of solar geoengineering as a potential response to climate change will demand complex decisions. These include not only the choice of whether to deploy solar engineering, but decisions regarding how to deploy, and ongoing decision-making throughout deployment. Research on the governance of solar geoengineering to date has primarily engaged only with the question of whether to deploy. We examine the science of solar geoengineering in order to clarify the technical dimensions of decisions about deployment-both strategic and operational-and how these might influence governance considerations, while consciously refraining from making specific recommendations. The focus here is on a hypothetical deployment rather than governance of the research itself. We first consider the complexity surrounding the design of a deployment scheme, in particular the complicated and difficult decision of what its objective(s) would be, given that different choices for how to deploy will lead to different climate outcomes. Next, we discuss the ongoing decisions across multiple timescales, from the sub-annual to the multi-decadal. For example, feedback approaches might effectively manage some uncertainties, but would require frequent adjustments to the solar geoengineering deployment in response to observations. Other decisions would be tied to the inherently slow process of detection and attribution of climate effects in the presence of natural variability. Both of these present challenges to decision-making. These considerations point toward particular governance requirements, including an important role for technical experts-with all the challenges that entails. Key Policy Insights  Decisions about solar geoengineering deployment will be informed not only by political choices, but also by climate science and engineering.  Design decisions will pertain to the spatial and temporal goals of a climate intervention and strategies for achieving those goals.  Some uncertainty can be managed through feedback, but this would require frequent operational decisions.  Some strategic decisions will depend on the detection and attribution of climatic effects from solar geoengineering, which may take decades.  Governance for solar geoengineering deployment will likely need to incorporate technical expertise for making short-term adjustments to the deployment and conducting attribution analysis, while also slowing down decisions made in response to attribution analysis to avoid hasty choices.

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Solar Geoengineering and Democracy

Cited by 66 publications

References 40 publications

Sulfur in the Sky with Diamonds: An Inquiry into the Feasibility of Solar Geoengineering

Sulfur in the Sky with Diamonds: An Inquiry into the Feasibility of Solar Geoengineering

The Slippery Slope Argument against Geoengineering Research

Technical characteristics of a solar geoengineering deployment and implications for governance

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