This paper explores what kind of uncertainty a research program governing solar climate engineering through Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI) needs to account for. Specifically, it tries to answer two central issues with regards to SAI research and it’s ethical evaluation: One, what irreducible uncertainties remain throughout the decision-process, and, two, how do these remaining uncertainties affect the ethical evaluation of SAI research. The main assumption is that decisions on SAI research governance will be made under normative uncertainty, (...) i.e. situations under irreducible knowledge-constraints that arise in concrete, practical decision-contexts. These decision-contexts are multi-lateral and empirically ambiguous, and the decision-makers need to reconcile a plurality of values. While normative uncertainty complicates the ethical evaluation of policy decisions, I argue that moral considerations can be accommodated through the inclusion of recognitional, participatory justice approaches, as well as adaptive and anticipatory governance methods. (shrink)

The paper explores how the framework of systemic risks can help govern the risks imposed through solar climate engineering research. The central argument is that a systemic perspective of risk is a useful tool for analysing and assessing the risks imposed through Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI) research. SAI is a form of climate engineering that could cool the planet by enhancing its albedo through the injection of aerosols into the stratosphere. Researching such a technology creates (...) systemic risks with a strong sociotechnical component. This component consists of the potential societal harm that a developing or new technology might cause to existing norms, values, institutions, and politics. The systemic risk framework is a valuable heuristic for this case, given the complex interdependencies of societal systems, infrastructures, markets, etc. At the same time, the systemic risk framework can be enhanced through the inclusion of a more robust and reflected ethical considerations on technological risks. Consequently, this article seeks to supplement the systemic risk governance framework with insights from technology ethics. Specifically, the paper offers an ethically reflective conception of societal value dynamism and stakeholder engagement and participation, tying it to existing systemic risk governance approaches. (shrink)

This thesis explores the ethical challenges that a potential research program for solar climate engineering via Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI) could incur. These ethical challenges are comprised of epistemic hurdles in relation to the research process, as well as societal questions of justice and the value of nature. The thesis proposes a variety of tools and approaches to assess and possibly govern the risks and uncertainties invoked by the research of SAI and its societal implications. The methodological (...) approach is based mainly on ethical and philosophical analysis and reflection and the main findings take the form of discursive argumentation and normative reflection. (shrink)

This book analyzes major ethical issues surrounding the use of climate engineering, particularly solar radiation management techniques, which have the potential to reduce some risks of anthropogenic climate change but also carry their own risks of harm and injustice. The book argues that we should approach the ethics of climate engineering via "non-ideal theory," which investigates what justice requires given the fact that many parties have failed to comply with their duty to mitigate greenhouse (...) gas emissions. Specifically, it argues that climate justice should be approached comparatively, evaluating the relative justice or injustice of feasible policies under conditions that are likely to hold within relevant timeframes. Likely near-future conditions include "pessimistic scenarios," in which no available option avoids serious ethical problems. The book contends that certain uses of SRM can be ethically defensible in some pessimistic scenarios. This is the first book devoted to the many ethical issues surrounding climate engineering. (shrink)

Much of the work on the ethics of climate engineering over the last few years has focused on the front-end of the potential timeline for climate intervention. Topics have included the initial taboo on bringing the discussion of climate engineering into the open, guidelines to put in place before commencing research, and governance arrangements before first deployment. While this work is clearly important, the current paper considers what insights can be gleaned from considering the tail-end, (...) that is, by using the requirement for future cessation as a criterion for any acceptable climate engineering strategy. After showing that time-limited interventions are a key part of the rhetoric of leading climate engineering advocates, the paper examines the implications of imposing a ‘cessation requirement’ on solar radiation management and carbon dioxide removal strategies. Consideration of a cessation requirement turns out to reveal a great deal about what ought to be happening now, before any decision to proceed with climate engineering deployment has been taken. (shrink)

Although Indic perspectives toward nature are now well documented, climate engineering discussions seem to still lack the views from Indic or other non‐Western sources. In this article, I will apply some of the Hindu and Jain concepts such as karma, nonviolence (Ahiṃsā ), humility (Vinaya ), and renunciation (Saṃnyāsa ) to analyze the two primary climate geoengineering strategies of solar radiation management (SRM) and carbon dioxide removal (CDR). I suggest that Indic philosophical and religious traditions such (...) as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism offer ethical concepts to call for humility in all acts of climate engineering leading to a favoring of CDR over SRM and a favoring of lifestyle changes (particularly vegetarianism) over both. I demonstrate these concepts by introducing the five great elements from the Hindu philosophy, two Hindu legends from Hindu mythology, the Indic ethical ideas of karma, renunciation, and humility, and the moral authority of Gandhi. (shrink)

Engineering the Climate: The Ethics of Solar Radiation Management is a wide-ranging and expert analysis of the ethics of the intentional management of solar radiation. This book will be a useful tool for policy-makers, a provocation for ethicists, and an eye-opening analysis for both the scientist and the general reader with interest in climate change.

Engineering the Climate: The Ethics of Solar Radiation Management is a wide-ranging and expert analysis of the ethics of the intentional management of solar radiation. This book will be a useful tool for policy-makers, a provocation for ethicists, and an eye-opening analysis for both the scientist and the general reader with interest in climate change.

In 1992, the global community made a commitment to stabilize ‘greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate sys...

Climate engineering (CE), the intentional modification of the climate in order to reduce the effects of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations, is sometimes touted as a potential response to climate change. Increasing interest in the topic has led to proposals for empirical tests of hypothesized CE techniques, which raise serious ethical concerns. We propose three ethical guidelines for CE researchers, derived from the ethics literature on research with human and animal subjects, applicable in the event that CE (...) research progresses beyond computer modeling. The Principle of Respect requires that the scientific community secure the global public's consent, voiced through their governmental representatives, before beginning any empirical research. The Principle of Beneficence and Justice requires that researchers strive for a favorable risk–benefit ratio and a fair distribution of risks and anticipated benefits, all while protecting the basic rights of affected individuals. Finally, the Minimization Principle requires that researchers minimize the extent and intensity of each experiment by ensuring that no experiments last longer, cover a greater geographical extent, or have a greater impact on the climate, ecosystem, or human welfare than is necessary to test the specific hypotheses in question. Field experiments that might affect humans or ecosystems in significant ways should not proceed until a full discussion of the ethics of CE research occurs and appropriate institutions for regulating such experiments are established. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn recent work, Joshua Horton and David Keith argue on distributive and consequentialist grounds that research into solar radiation management geoengineering is justified because the resulting knowledge has the potential to benefit everyone, particularly the ‘global poor.’ I argue that this view overlooks procedural and recognitional justice, and thus relegates to the background questions of how SRM research should be governed. In response to Horton and Keith, I argue for a multidimensional approach to geoengineering justice, which entails that questions (...) of how to govern SRM research should be addressed from the very outset – that is, now. (shrink)

This important edited collection addresses ethical issues associated with solar radiation management (SRM), a category of climate engineering techniques that would increase the planet’s reflectivity in order to offset some of the impacts of anthropogenic climate change. Such techniques include injecting sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere or brightening marine clouds with seawater. Although SRM has the potential to cool the planet by reducing the amount of incoming solar radiation absorbed by the planet, it raises a (...) wide array of difficult and interesting ethical issues. Engineering the Climate makes an important contribution to addressing many of these issues. (shrink)

When it comes to assessing the deontic status of acts and policies in the context of risk and uncertainty, moral theories are often at a loss. In this paper we hope to show that employing a multi-dimensional consequentialist framework provides ethical guidance for decision-making in complex situations. The paper starts by briefly rehearsing consequentialist responses to the issue of risk, as well as their shortcomings. We then go on to present our own proposal based on three dimensions: wellbeing, fairness and (...) probability. In the last section we apply our approach to a comparison of different climate policy options, including stratospheric solar-radiation management. (shrink)

David Keith's and Clive Hamilton's books both aim to introduce readers to a range of scientific, political, and ethical issues surrounding climate engineering (also known as geoengineering). Each author aims to tilt readers toward a particular stance on climate engineering—against climate engineering in Hamilton’s case, and cautiously for it in Keith’s. Hamilton’s book, Earthmasters, explores more issues in more detail; Keith’s book, The Case for Climate Engineering, gives just enough of a taste (...) to motivate the idea that climate engineering deserves serious consideration. This review summarizes and contrasts the two books. (shrink)

This chapter discusses how solar geoengineering might affect different African states, with a particular focus on its impact on social justice from an African perspective.

Many in the discourse on climate engineering agree that if deployment of solar radiation management (SRM) technologies is ever permissible, then it must be accompanied by far-reaching mitigation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This raises the question of if and how both strategies interact. Although raised in many publications, there are surprisingly few detailed investigations of this important issue. The paper aims at contributing to closing this research gap by (i) reconstructing moral hazard claims to clarify their (...) aim, (ii) offering one spe-cific normative justification for far-reaching mitigation and (iii) investigating in greater detail different mechanisms that could potentially cause a trade-off between mitigation and SRM. I conclude that the empirical evidence questioning the trade-off hypothesis is inconclusive. Moreover, theoretical reflections as well as economic model studies point to a trade-off. In our current epistemic situation these findings must be taken seriously. They caution against researching and developing SRM technologies before measures to avoid or minimise a trade-off are implemented. (shrink)

In line with Christopher Preston’s argument in the introduction to this volume, I argue here that, although it is helpful to identify potential injustices associated with SRM, it is also crucial both to evaluate how SRM compares to other available options and to consider empirical conditions under which deployment might occur. In arguing for this view, I rely on a distinction between two types of question: (1) whether SRM would produce just or unjust outcomes in some case and (2) whether (...) it would be just to deploy SRM in that same case. The former question pertains to whether some distribution of benefits and burdens is morally good or bad, whereas the latter pertains to whether some action or policy is morally permissible, impermissible, or obligatory. Although related, these two uses of justice do not come to the same thing. It may be that some climate policy involving SRM carries risks of substantial distributive injustice and yet is permissible or even obligatory. This is because, as I argue, considering what would be just to do should be comparative, taking into consideration both empirical conditions and the morally valuable and disvaluable features of alternative climate policies. (shrink)

Solar radiation management (SRM), a form of climate engineering, would offset the effects of increased greenhouse gas concentrations by reducing the amount of sunlight absorbed by the Earth. To encourage support for SRM research, advocates argue that SRM may someday be needed to reduce the risks from climate change. This paper examines the implications of two moral constraints—the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing, and the Doctrine of Double Effect—on this argument for SRM and SRM research. The (...) Doctrine of Doing and Allowing, and perhaps the Doctrine of Double Effect, shows that the argument is weaker than it appears. (shrink)

In addition to carbon dioxide, it is becoming increasingly clear that there are numerous other potent agents of anthropogenic forcing (e.g. methane, ozone, black carbon) at work in the climate system today. The typical ethical framing of climate change has not yet accommodated this complexity. In addition, geoengineering has often been presented as a Plan B that would simply counter unintentional (and positive) anthropogenic forcing with intentional (and negative) anthropogenic forcing. This paper attempts to better address the complexity (...) by outlining an ethical framework for reducing all anthropogenic forcing, a position it labels the 'climate imperative.' The paper considers geoengineering alongside various other anthropogenic forcing activities and discusses what the climate imperative would say about each of them. On this analysis, GHG and black carbon reductions remain a priority. At the same time, the framing reveals a significant ethical difference between geoengineering through solar radiation management and through carbon dioxide removal. (shrink)

Emerging technologies can have profound conceptual implications. Their emergence frequently calls for the articulation of new concepts, or for modifications and novel applications of concepts that are already entrenched in communication and thought. In this paper, we introduce the notion of “conceptual appropriation” to capture the dynamics between concepts and emerging technologies. By conceptual appropriation, we mean the novel application of a value-laden concept to lay a contestable claim on an underdetermined phenomenon. We illustrate the dynamics of conceptual appropriation by (...) analyzing the concept NATURE and its uptake in three discourses of emerging technology: cellular agriculture, solar geo-engineering, and biomimicry. We argue that NATURE and its cognate NATURALNESS are strongly valanced concepts upon which different stakeholders lay a claim. In doing so, stakeholders advance distinct conceptions of nature, typically to suit their own interests. Our case-studies illustrate how in discourses on emerging technology, the application of value-concepts is entangled with ideological stakes and power dynamics. (shrink)

Over the past decade or so, several commentators have called for mission-driven research programs on solar geoengineering, also known as solar radiation management (SRM) or climate engineering. Building on the largely epistemic reasons offered by earlier commentators, this paper argues that a well-designed mission-driven research program that aims to evaluate solar geoengineering could promote justice and legitimacy, among other valuable ends. Specifically, an international, mission-driven research program that aims to produce knowledge to enable well-informed decision-making (...) about solar geoengineering could (1) provide a more effective way to identify and answer the questions that policymakers would need to answer; and (2) provide a venue for more efficient, effective, just, and legitimate governance of solar geoengineering research; while (3) reducing the tendency for solar geoengineering research to exacerbate international domination. Thus, despite some risks and limitations, a well-designed mission-driven research program offers one way to improve the governance of solar geoengineering research relative to the ‘investigator-driven’ status quo. (shrink)

Some scientists suggest that it might be possible to reflect a portion of incoming sunlight back into space to reduce climate change and its impacts. Others argue that such solar radiation management (SRM) geoengineering is inherently incompatible with democracy. In this article, we reject this incompatibility argument. First, we counterargue that technologies such as SRM lack innate political characteristics and predetermined social effects, and that democracy need not be deliberative to serve as a standard for governance. We then (...) rebut each of the argument’s core claims, countering that (1) democratic institutions are sufficiently resilient to manage SRM, (2) opting out of governance decisions is not a fundamental democratic right, (3) SRM may not require an undue degree of technocracy, and (4) its implementation may not concentrate power and promote authoritarianism. Although we reject the incompatibility argument, we do not argue that SRM is necessarily, or even likely to be, democratic in practice. (shrink)

Although scientists began to speculate about manipulating solar radiation to influence global climate more than a century ago, sustained discussion of climate engineering in r...

Various geoengineering technologies that would deliberately alter the climate system have been proposed as a way to alleviate risks of global warming. Technologies that would shield incoming sunlight to cool the planet, so called solar radiation management, are particularly controversial. Considering insights from social studies of simulation modeling and research on expectations in science and technology, I argue that climate modeling has a central role in producing visions of SRM. I draw upon an empirical analysis of scientific (...) research on SRM to examine how a creative play with technological ideas becomes possible through climate modeling. This enables scientists to project and study environmental impacts of speculative SRM methods in virtual experiments and to develop and refine ideas for adjusting sunlight. Hence, while climate models are used to improve scientific understandings of climate system behavior and to anticipate possible environmental impacts of SRM, they also become inventive tools, allowing scientists to envision novel ways of climate control and optimization. Given the importance of simulation studies to knowledge production on SRM, I critically reflect on the challenges that arise when visions about an engineered climate future are first and foremost produced in climate simulations. (shrink)

Anthropogenic climate change poses some difficult ethical quandaries for non-anthropocentrists. While it is hard to deny that climate change is a substantial moral ill, many types of non-human organisms stand to benefit from climate change. Modelling studies provide evidence that net primary productivity (NPP) could be substantially boosted, both regionally and globally, as a result of warming from increased concentrations of greenhouse gases. The same holds for deployment of certain types of climate engineering, or large-scale, (...) technological modifications of the global environment in order to prevent or slow anthropogenic climate change. For example, solar radiation management with stratospheric aerosol injections could benefit plant life by promoting enhanced photosynthesis, increasing diffuse radiation, and reducing heat stress. This has a surprising implication: from some non-anthropocentric perspectives, certain scenarios of climate change and climate engineering might bring about morally better states of affairs when compared to emission-mitigation baselines. (shrink)

Geoengineering; specifically Solar Radiation Management ; has been proposed to effect rapid influence over the Earth’s climate system in order to counteract Anthropogenic Global Warming. This poses near-term to long-term governance challenges; some of which are within the planning horizon of current political administrations. Previous discussions of governance of SRM have focused primarily on two scenarios: an isolated “Greenfinger” individual; or state; acting independently ; versus more consensual; internationalist approaches. I argue that these models represent a very limited (...) sub-set of plausible deployment scenarios. To generate a range of alternative models; I offer a short; relatively unstructured discussion of a range of different types of warfare – each with an analogous SRM deployment regime. (shrink)

Some types of solar radiation management (SRM) research are ethically problematic because they expose persons, animals, and ecosystems to significant risks. In our earlier work, we argued for ethical norms for SRM research based on norms for biomedical research. Biomedical researchers may not conduct research on persons without their consent, but universal consent is impractical for SRM research. We argue that instead of requiring universal consent, ethical norms for SRM research require only political legitimacy in decision-making about global SRM (...) trials. Using Allen Buchanan & Robert Keohane's model of global political legitimacy, we examine several existing global institutions as possible analogues for a politically legitimate SRM decision-making body. (shrink)

While climate change mitigation remains indispensable, together with adaptation to such climate change as cannot be prevented, current slowness of progress towards attaining an international agreement on these matters has fostered suggestions about climate engineering, originally proposed as supplementary to adaptation and mitigation. These suggestions take the forms of Solar Radiation Management and Carbon Dioxide Removal. This paper discusses the ethics of researching and of deploying them. Solar Radiation Management ranges from harmless but inadequate (...) measures such as making roofs reflect sunlight to ambitious ones such as projecting sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere to reduce incoming radiation. Some favor this measure as a quick and inexpensive replacement for mitigation; but its possible side-effects and lack of an exit-strategy mean that its deployment would be misguided, and that researching it might undermine determination to reach a mitigation agreement. Some forms of Carbon Dioxide Removal face similar objections, but others, like afforestation and Carbon Capture and Storage, comprise acceptable enhancements of current technology. Even if they do not buy time, these measures could beneficially supplement a global Climate Change agreement. (shrink)

Ethics is highly relevant to grand technological interventions into basic planetary systems on a global scale (roughly, “geoengineering”). Focusing on climate engineering, this chapter identifies a large number of salient concerns (e.g., welfare, rights, justice, political legitimacy) but argues that early policy framings (e.g., emergency, global public good) often marginalize these and so avoid important questions of justification. It also suggests that, since it is widely held that geoengineering has become a serious option mainly because of political inertia, (...) there are important contextual issues, especially around the paradoxical question, “What should we do, ethically speaking, given that we have not done, and will continue not to do, what we should be doing?” Taking such issues seriously helps to explain why some regard geoengineering as ethically troubling and highlights the largely neglected threat of interventions that discriminate against future generations (“parochial geoengineering”). We should take seriously the risk that, far from being simply a welcome new tool for climate action, geoengineering may become yet another manifestation of the underlying problem. (shrink)

Scientists and engineers often are not much interested in theoretical-ethics discussions. Frequently, like Harvard’s Cass Sunstein (2002), they propose “freemarket environmentalism,” basing environmental decisions on cost-benefit analysis and on saving the greatest number of lives for the fewest number of dollars. They say that when society overregulates, by emotively and irrationally rejecting environmental-risk decisions based only on cost-benefit analysis (CBA), it reduces manufacturing jobs, shrinks the economic pie, makes people poorer, and thus causes unnecessary deaths. To avoid these economic problems—that (...) harm everyone—Sunstein (2002, ix, 7) and others argue “for a kind of cost-benefit state” that .. (shrink)

Stephen Gardiner and Augustin Fragnière suggest replacing the Oxford Principles for the governance of climate engineering (CE) with their 10 Tollgate Principles (Gardiner & Fragnière, 2018). Like the Oxford Principles, the Tollgate Principles offer abstract, high-level guidance. Translating either set of principles into actual policies or governance mechanisms therefore requires considerable effort. In this commentary, I offer some suggestions for putting the Tollgate Principles into practice, paying special attention to the notions of ‘ethically defensible forms’ of CE and (...) ‘well-founded ethical norms’. (shrink)

Merck suppressed data on harmful effects of its drug Vioxx, and Guidant suppressed data on electrical flaws in one of its heart-defibrillator models. Both cases reveal how financial conflicts of interest can skew biomedical research. Such conflicts also occur in electric-utility-related research. Attempting to show that increased atomic energy can help address climate change, some industry advocates claim nuclear power is an inexpensive way to generate low-carbon electricity. Surveying 30 recent nuclear analyses, this paper shows that industry-funded studies appear (...) to fall into conflicts of interest and to illegitimately trim cost data in several main ways. They exclude costs of full-liability insurance, underestimate interest rates and construction times by using overnight costs, and overestimate load factors and reactor lifetimes. If these trimmed costs are included, nuclear-generated electricity can be shown roughly 6 times more expensive than most studies claim. After answering four objections, the paper concludes that, although there may be reasons to use reactors to address climate change, economics does not appear to be one of them. (shrink)

The strongest arguments for the permissibility of geoengineering (also known as climate engineering) rely implicitly on non-ideal theory—roughly, the theory of justice as applied to situations of partial compliance with principles of ideal justice. In an ideally just world, such arguments acknowledge, humanity should not deploy geoengineering; but in our imperfect world, society may need to complement mitigation and adaptation with geoengineering to reduce injustices associated with anthropogenic climate change. We interpret research proponents’ arguments as an application (...) of a particular branch of non-ideal theory known as “clinical theory.” Clinical theory aims to identify politically feasible institutions or policies that would address existing (or impending) injustice without violating certain kinds of moral permissibility constraints. We argue for three implications of clinical theory: First, conditional on falling costs and feasibility, clinical theory provides strong support for some geoengineering techniques that aim to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Second, if some kinds of carbon dioxide removal technologies are supported by clinical theory, then clinical theory further supports using those technologies to enable “overshoot” scenarios in which developing countries exceed the cumulative emissions caps that would apply in ideal circumstances. Third, because of tensions between political feasibility and moral permissibility, clinical theory provides only weak support for geoengineering techniques that aim to manage incoming solar radiation. (shrink)

Ethics requires good science. Many scientists, government leaders, and industry representatives support tripling of global-nuclear-energy capacity on the grounds that nuclear fission is “carbon free” and “releases no greenhouse gases.” However, such claims are scientifically questionable (and thus likely to lead to ethically questionable energy choices) for at least 3 reasons. (i) They rely on trimming the data on nuclear greenhouse-gas emissions (GHGE), perhaps in part because flawed Kyoto Protocol conventions require no full nuclear-fuel-cycle assessment of carbon content. (ii) They (...) underestimate nuclear-fuel-cycle releases by erroneously assuming that mostly high-grade uranium ore, with much lower emissions, is used. (iii) They inconsistently compare nuclear-related GHGE only to those from fossil fuels, rather than to those from the best GHG-avoiding energy technologies. Once scientists take account of (i)–(iii), it is possible to show that although the nuclear fuel cycle releases (per kWh) much fewer GHG than coal and oil, nevertheless it releases far more GHG than wind and solar-photovoltaic. Although there may be other, ethical, reasons to support nuclear tripling, reducing or avoiding GHG does not appear to be one of them. (shrink)

This paper uses a novel account of non-ideal political action that can justify radical responses to severe climate injustice, including and especially deliberate attempts to engineer the climate system in order reflect sunlight into space and cooling the planet. In particular, it discusses the question of what those suffering from climate injustice may do in order to secure their fundamental rights and interests in the face of severe climate change impacts. Using the example of risky geoengineering (...) strategies such as sulfate aerosol injections, I argue that peoples that are innocently subject to severely negative climate change impacts may have a special permission to engage in large-scale yet risky climate interventions to prevent them. Furthermore, this can be true even if those interventions wrongly harm innocent people. (shrink)

Plants are permanently impacted by their environments, and their abilities to tolerate multiple fluctuating environmental conditions vary as a function of several genetic and natural factors. Over the past decades, scientific innovations and applications of the knowledge derived from biotechnological investigations to agriculture caused a substantial increase of the yields of many crops. However, due to exacerbating effects of climate change and a growing human population, a crisis of malnutrition may arise in the upcoming decades in some places in (...) the world. So, effective, ethical and managerial regulations and fair policies should be set up and applied at the local and global levels so that Earth may fairly provide the food and living accommodation needed by its inhabitants. To save some energy consumption, electric devices should be manufactured to work with solar energy, whenever available, particularly in sunny countries where sun is available most of the time. Such characteristic will save energy and make solar energy-based smartphones and laptops less cumbersome in terms of chargers and plugging issues. (shrink)

Concerns about the risks of unmitigated greenhouse gas emissions are growing. At the same time, confidence that international policy agreements will succeed in considerably lowering anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions is declining. Perhaps as a result, various geoengineering solutions are gaining attention and credibility as a way to manage climate change. Serious consideration is currently being given to proposals to cool the planet through solar-radiation management. Here we analyze how the unique and nontrivial risks of geoengineering strategies pose fundamental (...) questions at the interface between science and ethics. To illustrate the importance of integrated ethical and scientific analysis, we define key open questions and outline a coupled scientific-ethical research agenda to analyze solar-radiation management geoengineering proposals. We identify nine key fields of coupled research including whether solar-radiation management can be tested, how quickly learning could occur, normative decisions embedded in how different climate trajectories are valued, and justice issues regarding distribution of the harms and benefits of geoengineering. To ensure that ethical analyses are coupled with scientific analyses of this form of geoengineering, we advocate that funding agencies recognize the essential nature of this coupled research by establishing an Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications program for solar-radiation management. (shrink)

Should we research, develop, and deploy climate engineering technology? Drawing upon contemporary moral and political theory, this book offers a normative perspective on such questions, ultimately making the case in favor of research and regulation guided by norms of legitimacy, distributive justice, and procedural justice.

With the evidence for anthropogenic climate change piling up, suggesting that climate impacts of GHG emissions might have been underestimated in the past (Allison et al. 2009; WBGU 2009), and mitigation policies apparently lagging behind what many scientists consider as necessary reductions in order to prevent dangerous climate change, the debate about intentional climate change, or “climate engineering”, as we shall say in the following, has gained momentum in the past years. While efforts to (...) technically modify earth’s climate had been the focus of sporadic discussions at least since the White House’s Report “Restoring the Quality of Our Environment” (cf. Keith 2000), Paul Crutzen’s cautious plea for research into the feasibility and side-effects of stratospheric sulphur injections (Crutzen 2006) has incited an inter-disciplinary controversy (with a preliminary culmination in the Royal Society’s assessment (Royal Society 2009)), while increasing public awareness and debate about climate engineering, as well. The controversy, though, does not focus on the question whether climate engineering should be carried out today (which is largely reckoned to be a bad idea, unnecessary, or premature) or at some point in the future (which is considered a decision we don’t have to take now), but on whether to engage in large-scale research into the alternative technological options for carrying out intentional climate change. It is this paper’s purpose to make that controversy more transparent. In order to do so, we analyse what seems to be the major argument in favour of research into climate engineering: the lesser evil-, or, as Stephen Gardiner has called it, the arm the future-argument — in short: the AF-argument (Gardiner 2010). Such an argumentative analysis makes explicit the normative and descriptive assumptions which underlie the reasoning, without ascertaining or denying them, and thus enables one to assess the overall strength of the argument as well as to determine which objections do, and which don’t undermine it. (shrink)

Climate change threatens to infringe the human rights of many. Taking an optimistic stance, climate engineering might reduce the extent to which such rights are infringed, but it might also bring about other rights infringements. This Forum, leading off the special issue on climate engineering governance, engages three scholars in a discussion of three core issues at the intersection of human rights and climate engineering. The Forum is divided into three sections, each authored (...) by a different scholar and discussing a distinct aspect of this relationship. First, Toby Svoboda gives an overarching view of three competing approaches to human rights, grounded in philosophy; then, Holly Jean Buck looks at lessons from how the climate migration conversation brings a human rights approach to a climate policy issue; and finally, Pablo Suarez illustrates how a humanitarian approach to climate engineering works with a human rights framework. The conclusion of the Forum draws together points of overlap across the three sections and suggests a path forward for policy and research on this topic. Together, the sections show that climate engineering, should it materialize, will pose novel human rights challenges, and may well force reconsideration of how human rights are applied as a guide to action. (shrink)

Climate engineering is subject to the “playing God” critique, which charges that humans should not undertake to control nature in ways that seem to overstep the proper scope of human agency. This argument is easily discredited, and in fact the opposite—that we should “play God”—may be equally valid in some circumstances. To revive the playing God critique, I argue that it functions not on a logical but on a symbolic and emotional level to highlight nostalgia for functional dualisms (...) in the face of the bewildering problem of climate change. It also raises significant questions about the virtue of those who might engineer the climate. These two concerns point to questions about the proper role of human agency. I use the scholarship of Aldo Leopold and H. Richard Niebuhr to argue for a model of human agency based on contextual awareness and responsive, communal responsibility. I conclude with some implications of this view for decision-makers engaging the topic of climate engineering. (shrink)

Although still highly controversial, the idea that we can use technology to radically alter our environment in order to mitigate the climate challenges we now face is becoming an ever more discussed approach. This chapter takes up a specific climate engineering technology, carbon capture, usage, and storage (CCUS), and highlights how this technology works and how its governance still needs further work to ensure that it is aligned to the ideal of sustainable development. Given that climate (...) engineering technologies like CCUS have the potential to ameliorate many of the climate issues and support the SDGs, there remains a lacuna of inserting these globally impactful technologies within a normative political framework to respect that proper responsibility is attributed. The aim of the chapter is to examine the concept of accountability, how it has been traditionally understood in the literature, and why a polysemic and multidimensional account of accountability is required if climate engineering technologies like CCUS are actually to support sustainable development. This may serve as a first theoretically informed basis for reflection on how to create a synergy between the responsible deployment of climate engineering innovation and the achievement of the SDGs targets, one that can shed light on how justifications and decisions about sustainable strategies and constraints are managed, taken and communicated. (shrink)

According to the “Lesser of Two Evils Argument,” deployment of solar radiation management (SRM) geoengineering in a climate emergency would be morally justified because it likely would be the best option available. A prominent objection to this argument is that a climate emergency might constitute a genuine moral dilemma in which SRM would be impermissible even if it was the best option. However, while conceiving of a climate emergency as a moral dilemma accounts for some ethical (...) concerns about SRM, it requires the controversial claim that there are genuine moral dilemmas, and it potentially undermines moral action guidance in emergency scenarios. Instead, it is better to conceive of climate emergencies as situations calling for agent-regret. This alternative allows us coherently to hold that SRM may be morally problematic even if it ought to be deployed in some scenario. (shrink)

Climate engineering with stratospheric sulfate aerosol injections (SSAI) has the potential to reduce risks of injustice related to anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases. Relying on evidence from modeling studies, this paper makes the case that SSAI could have the potential to reduce many of the key physical risks of climate change identified by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Such risks carry potential injustice because they are often imposed on low-emitters who do not benefit from (...) class='Hi'>climate change. Because SSAI has the potential to reduce those risks, it thereby has the potential to reduce the injustice associated with anthropogenic emissions. While acknowledging important caveats, including uncertainty in modeling studies and the potential for SSAI to carry its own risks of injustice, the paper argues that there is a strong case for continued research into SSAI, especially if attention is paid to how it might be used to reduce emissions-driven injustice. (shrink)

Als ›Climate Engineering‹ bezeichnet man großtechnische Eingriffe in das Klimasystem, die darauf abzielen, den anthropogenen Klimawandel zu kompensieren. Neben Mitigation- und Adaptation-Maßnahmen bilden Climate-Engineering-Verfahren damit eine dritte Kategorie möglicher Reaktionen auf den anthropogenen Klimawandel.

The burgeoning literature on the ethical issues raised by climate engineering has explored various normative questions associated with the research and deployment of climate engineering, and has examined a number of responses to them. While researchers have noted the ethical issues from climate engineering are global in nature, much of the discussion proceeds predominately with ethical framework in the Anglo-American and European traditions, which presume particular normative standpoints and understandings of human–nature relationship. The current (...) discussion on the ethical issues, therefore, is far from being a genuine global dialogue. The aim of this article is to address the lack of intercultural exchange by exploring the ethics of climate engineering from a perspective of Confucian environmental ethics. Drawing from the existing discussion on Confucian environmental ethics and Confucian ethics of technology, I discuss what Confucian ethics can contribute to the ethical debate on climate engineering. (shrink)

There is widespread agreement that ethical concerns are central to decision-making about, and governance of, geoengineering. This is especially true of the most prominent and paradigm example of climate engineering, the spraying of sulfate particles into the stratosphere in order to block incoming sunlight and so limit global warming ). Geoengineering ethics, like geoengineering science, is still in its early, exploratory days. This chapter offers an introductory overview of the emerging discussion and some of the challenges moving forward, (...) taking SSI as its key example. It identifies a range of values relevant to geoengineering, exposes some misleading early framings, argues that questions of justification and context are both important, and summarizes the Tollgate principles for geoengineering governance. One theme is that despite the initial agreement on the centrality of ethics, in practice there are profound risks that ethical considerations will be marginalized, both in the short-term as research is developed, and in the longer-run, in any deployment. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Jahrbuch für Wissenschaft und Ethik Jahrgang: 21 Heft: 1 Seiten: 147-170.

Ethicists and social scientists alike have advocated for the inclusion of vulnerable populations in research and decision-making on climate engineering. Unfortunately, there have been few efforts to do so. The research presented in this paper was designed to build knowledge about how vulnerable populations think about climate engineering. The goal of this manuscript is to bring the ethics literature on climate engineering into dialogue with emerging social science data documenting the perspectives of vulnerable populations. (...) The results indicate some concerns among vulnerable populations may resemble those outlined by ethicists. However, the perspectives expressed by interviewees also extend previous ethical treatments by indicating ways in which climate engineering could compound existing injustices. (shrink)