Climate Engineering: Ethical and Political Concerns

Abstract

With each year that passes, the chances of meeting the ambitious temperature targets outlined in the Paris Agreement with mitigation alone seem less and less likely. And with the chances of meeting those temperature targets with mitigation alone decreasing, the prospects of climate engineering are on the rise. Consisting of both carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and solar radiation management (SRM), climate engineering refers to a heterogeneous group of technological proposals all aimed at the intentional modification of the global environment in order to offset or reduce the effects of anthropogenic climate change. And while each of these proposals faces its own technical hurdles, it is widely recognized that some of the tallest hurdles facing these proposals are ethical and political. The point of this panel is to explore some of the ethical and political hurdles that specific climate engineering technologies will have to overcome if they are ever to justifiably comprise part of our response to anthropogenic climate change.