7 April 2021

New publication from SUSY: The politics and governance of research into solar geoengineering

WIREs Climate Change

Extant proposals for governance of solar geoengineering research fail to encompass critical emergent social and political implications, argue Associate Professor Olaf Corry and colleague in a newly published peer-reviewed article in WIREs Climate Change.

The article reviews and explores geoengineering research governance in-depth and examines proposals for governance of research, including suggested frameworks, principles, procedures, and institutions. The article critically assesses and highlights problems of the reproduction of Northern norms, instrumental approaches to public engagement, a weak embrace of precaution, and a persistent—but questionable—separation of research from deployment. 

"Ideally a geoengineering research regime needs to also ensure that all research recognizes and engages with its political and ethical context and is governed in a fully international framework, implemented by national and international research funders."

The need for an explicit, reflexive, international research governance regime encompassing the emergent social, ethical and political, as well as technical, implications of solar geoengineering research is further expressed by the authors in an article in Advanced Science News. The key points of the former article are here conveyed in the context of the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) proposals promoting a solar geoengineering research program.

Read the article in WIREs Climate Change.

Read the article in Advanced Science News.