![ORCID Icon]({"type":"image","src":"/templates/jsp/_style2/_tandf/images/orcid.svg"} "ORCID Icon"){kind=small}
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4528-3000
ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT
The stringency of the 1.5 degree goal under the Paris Agreement, coupled with the mismatch between that goal and domestic mitigation pledges, inevitably directs attention onto the potential future role of solar radiation management (SRM) technologies. Such technologies, however, remain controversial, and analysis of their environmental, social and ethical implications is at an early stage. In this context, this paper distils four key governance objectives and proposes three specific policy interventions for the near-term governance of SRM technologies. Specifically, we build from existing literature to argue that SRM governance must simultaneously: guard against the risks of uncontrolled SRM development; enable potentially valuable research; build legitimacy for research and any future policy through broad public engagement and ensure that SRM is only considered as one part of a broader mitigation agenda. We propose three interventions to work towards those objectives in the near term by: developing a transparency mechanism for research; creating a global forum for public engagement and including consideration of SRM in the global stocktake under the Paris Agreement. Finally, we argue that carrying out these interventions requires a shared or ‘polycentric’ SRM governance structure that can build on the site-specific capabilities and preferences of existing international institutions.
Key policy insights
Despite their highly controversial nature, large-scale technological interventions, such as solar radiation management (SRM), must be considered (albeit possibly rejected) for their potential contribution towards meeting the 1.5 degree target established under the Paris Agreement.
Existing governance mechanisms for SRM need further development to ensure that unnecessary threats to social and/or natural systems are not incurred.
There are at least three governance mechanisms that should be pursued immediately to protect against some of these potential threats, including: a transparency mechanism for SRM research, a global forum to facilitate public engagement and incorporating evaluation of SRM technologies into the global stocktake under the Paris Agreement.
Introduction
Climate engineering or geoengineering technologies must now be considered in any evaluation of humanity’s potential to meet the ambitions of the 2015 Paris Agreement. The international community has agreed to hold atmospheric warming to ‘well below’ 2°C while ‘pursuing efforts’ to limit warming to 1.5°C. The best available models suggest that there are few pathways to meet even the higher of these two targets absent incorporation of large-scale technological interventions to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere (IPCC, 2014). Yet, such carbon dioxide removal schemes present many technical, environmental and social challenges that may limit their usefulness (Burns & Nicholson, 2017; Field & Mach, 2017).
This has led some scientists to suggest that the only high-confidence method to keep temperatures beneath the 1.5°C threshold is to couple deep global emissions cuts with SRM (Horton, Keith, & Honegger, 2016; Smith & Rasch, 2013). SRM technologies like stratospheric aerosol injection or marine cloud brightening could suppress temperatures by reflecting some amount of incoming solar radiation back into space, or, in the case of high-altitude cirrus cloud thinning, by allowing the more rapid atmospheric exit of outgoing solar radiation (Committee on Geoengineering Climate, 2015).
Given the mismatch between the Paris Agreement’s nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and its global climate goals (Höhne et al., 2017), SRM is increasingly likely to become part of the larger climate change response conversation. Yet, there are important concerns about SRM, including the possibility that giving it attention leads to downward pressure on mitigation actions, unintended environmental and social consequences, and ethical challenges, such as potential impacts on future generations (Nicholson, 2013; Robock 2008). These concerns must be heard, but also balanced with evidence-based consideration of the risks and potentials of these technologies, which can only be enabled through additional scientific research. Existing governance arrangements are inadequate to manage these complex issues and required evaluations, highlighting the need to think more strategically about governance in this space.
The IPCC’s scoping document for the Special Report on 1.5°C further underscores the need to discuss SRM’s management in calling for examination of ‘governance, ethical, and equity impacts of negative emission technologies and other geoengineering options’ (Krug, 2016, p. 10). The subsequent IPCC Outline for the Special Report on 1.5°C also invites examination of SRM, though in a circumscribed fashion, in, for example, its call for assessing negative emissions technologies and ‘associated opportunities and challenges’ (IPCC, 2016, chapter 4).
This article responds to the IPCC’s call for further investigation into SRM governance options by identifying four overarching governance objectives, and using those objectives to identify three clear and strategic near-term governance interventions. Whereas previous scholarly articles on this subject have tended to settle on high-level governance principles and have been highly legalistic (Horton & Reynolds, 2016), our focus is on concrete, politically contextualized activities that should be undertaken immediately. We concentrate specifically on international governance because, as one author has put it,
it is clear that governance of solar [climate engineering] methods must be international, since their low direct costs and global impacts put unilateral action within the reach of a dozen-odd world powers, but effective control beyond the reach of any single power. (Parson, 2017, p. 2)
The next section distils four key SRM governance objectives, drawing on the SRM governance literature. We then propose three concrete near-term international policy interventions that, together, begin to meet those objectives. Next, we turn to the broader global governance literature for insights into regime design for SRM governance, arguing for a polycentric approach to carry out our proposed interventions. The discussion that follows points to the potential for existing international organizations to carry out these interventions based on an analysis of not only their legal capabilities, but critically, the material and normative assets they have at their disposal to achieve these goals.1
Near-term SRM governance objectives
Any future SRM deployment would require governance that, at a minimum, establishes decision-making procedures about whether, how and over what timeframe to undertake deployment, and enables monitoring, assessment, and rapid cessation or adjustment of any SRM interventions in the climate system (Parson & Ernst, 2013). In the nearer term,2 SRM governance needs are more circumscribed. The more immediate needs entail setting SRM research on a path towards potential benefit while protecting against risks, and also ensuring that SRM is given open, careful assessment and consideration by the scientific community, policymakers and civil society.
SRM governance has received some treatment in the scholarly literature (see Forum for Climate Engineering Assessment, 2017) as well as through several authoritative reports from expert bodies (see Morrow, 2017). These scholarly contributions make clear that SRM technologies pose risks and offer opportunities that demand international governance (see also Parson, 2017). They also identify more specific governance architectures, which we unpack in the subsequent section. In this section, we identify four themes in the scholarly literature, around which we identify four near-term SRM governance objectives.
First, a primary focus in the scholarly literature to date has been on identifying and developing mechanisms to guard against risks associated with potential SRM deployment (see, for instance, Abelkop & Carlson, 2012; Barrett, 2014; Parson, 2014). The risk profiles of various SRM technologies have been well canvassed. They include a range of potential deleterious environmental, social and/or political effects. A desire to mediate against such potential risks has defined the few concrete policy interventions to date. Most notably, the parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the London Protocol to the London Convention on Ocean Dumping have taken some early, limited steps to govern climate engineering technologies in the context of ocean fertilization experimentation and possible deployment, framed around a precautionary approach in the face of potential harms from the technologies’ development.
In the near term, the risks that need to be managed have to do with research. Most prominent are the moral hazard that SRM research distracts from the mitigation agenda (Lin, 2013), as well as ‘technological lock-in’ whereby the very act of research might set the world on a path to the development of dangerous or difficult to control technologies (Cairns, 2014; Rayner et al., 2013). Simultaneously, efforts made now to govern near-term risks will create a path dependence that must be taken into account in evaluating governance decisions.
Second, although less prolifically argued, the literature also suggests that SRM governance ought to enable various kinds of research and development, in part to allow better understanding of risks and potentials (Long, Loy, & Morgan, 2015; Parson & Keith, 2013). An important insight from this literature concerns trade-offs between risks. The risks associated with SRM development and potential deployment must not be viewed in isolation, but rather compared to and weighed against the risks associated with a world in which the climate is changing absent the development of SRM technologies. This literature also suggests that scientific advancement may be hampered if governance is too stringent or uncertain, or if it focuses on risks to the exclusion of potential benefits. For example, not only does governance uncertainty heighten the potential for risky experimentation or rogue deployment, but it could also dampen potentially valuable research as scientists express wariness in the face of regulatory ambiguity.
Third, the literature makes clear that broad public engagement in SRM governance is needed from the earliest stages of the SRM conversation. Aside from normative rationales rooted in democratic participation in decision-making, public engagement is a necessary, but not sufficient, step towards legitimizing research and any future related policies, and can potentially lead to better research (Jinnah, Nicholson, & Flegal, 2017; Winickoff, Flegal, & Asrat, 2015). Indeed, scholars have begun to promote various forms of public engagement on this issue, ranging from information-sharing activities, such as focus groups (Macnaghten & Szerszynski, 2013), to more dialogic forms of engagement, including deliberative workshops and exercises (Bellamy, Chilvers, & Vaughan, 2016; Corner, Parkhill, Pidgeon, & Vaughan, 2013; Pidgeon, Parkhill, Corner, & Vaughan, 2013; Winickoff et al., 2015). Although these efforts are a good start, there is much work to be done to broaden the foundation to, for example, underrepresented groups who may be impacted by SRM governance decisions and to ensure full engagement by relevant expert communities (Parson, 2017; Winickoff et al., 2015).
Fourth, every major assessment of SRM governance over the past decade has concluded that if SRM research is pursued it must be as part of a broader mitigation framework (Morrow, 2017). This is because SRM does not in itself represent an adequate response to climate change. At best, careful use of SRM technologies may, by dampening the rate or extent of rising temperatures, buy the world some time to ratchet up mitigation and adaptation activities. The underlying problem – the continued build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere – will not be meaningfully addressed by SRM.
We distil, then, the following four objectives for near-term SRM governance from this literature:
Objective 1: Guard against potential risks and harms;
Objective 2: Enable appropriate research and development of scientific knowledge;
Objective 3: Legitimize any future research or policy-making through active and informed public and expert community engagement and the development of democratic systems of control; and
Objective 4: Ensure that SRM is considered only as a part of a broader portfolio of responses to climate change.
There are two important caveats to our analysis above. First, some have argued that paying any attention to SRM, including via proposals for governance, produces a ‘moral hazard’ that distracts from the rest of the mitigation agenda and gives legitimacy to a set of technologies that could prove dangerous (Lin, 2013). Our thinking, however, is more in line with John Virgoe’s assertion that, ‘Ignoring geoengineering today, and only considering it when all else has failed, is a recipe for bad, politics-led decision-making’ (Virgoe, 2009, p. 113). The risks attached to SRM suggest that it is better to discuss SRM carefully and openly in an anticipatory manner (Stilgoe, Watson, & Kuo, 2013), than to leave it lurking in the background as an unvetted ‘Plan B’ (Corry, 2017; Nicholson, 2016).
Second, it should be noted that, faced with the complexities in this area, some scholars argue that SRM is inherently ungovernable.3 Although we recognize the immense challenges associated with SRM governance, inasmuch as the international community seeks to govern activities along other frontiers of science (from genetically modified organisms to bioweapons), we argue that, when disaggregated into discrete governance objectives and interventions, SRM is governable and, moreover, must be governed. This is not to suggest that such a task is likely to be easy. As with other areas of global governance, efforts will be imperfect and must be adaptive to a quickly evolving empirical landscape. It could also prove that the institutions best positioned to take the lead on the formal governance of SRM are not adequately equipped or resourced, or that the structure of SRM as a technological form means that it is extraordinarily difficult to manage within the international system. Nevertheless, these challenges cannot generate complacency or suggest that the need to govern SRM can be ignored. We can and must continue to build systems of governance to enable, control and legitimize policies surrounding complex and potentially risky areas of human endeavour.
Although there is wide consensus on our proposed four objectives in the literature, scholars have had less to say about how such objectives should be achieved. In the next section, we propose three specific interventions that we argue should be pursued in the near term at the international level to work towards these objectives.
Near-term interventions for meeting SRM governance objectives
Drawing on and extending upon the work of the Forum for Climate Engineering Assessment’s Academic Working Group on International Governance of Climate Engineering (the AWG), we propose that three international governance interventions are needed immediately to work towards these governance objectives.4 There are, of course, other governance mechanisms and activities related to SRM that also deserve near-term attention. In identifying the three concrete priorities below, we are pointing to those activities most crucial to the facilitation of norm development and coordination between relevant actors.
Intervention I: develop a transparency mechanism
Transparency has become a bedrock principle within SRM governance discussions (Rayner et al., 2013). This is in part because there are fears that SRM could be used irresponsibly or nefariously by some actors to the detriment of others. Transparent information about the state of any SRM deployment efforts would be critical to obviating and policing against these kinds of concerns.
The current transparency standard for complex emerging technologies is to develop national or international reporting systems via a digital clearinghouse or registry (Craik & Moore, 2014). An SRM transparency mechanism would allow identification of issues of interest while also helping to coordinate potentially beneficial scientific research. Making available information about the current state of knowledge and ongoing research efforts is also a necessary (though insufficient) condition for informed public engagement at various stages of decision-making surrounding SRM governance.
A transparency mechanism would help to meet Objectives 1, 2 and 3 above, in enabling and controlling research and in facilitating public access to information about it. Specifically, a transparency mechanism would: facilitate the sharing of non-commercially sensitive information; enable identification and traceability of projects to help ensure responsible actions; provide a check on whether projects have met legal, ethical, public engagement, risk assessment and other developing norms and requirements; help scientists trace ongoing pre-publication research as research volume grows; serve to identify and bring attention to funding streams for research; and assist with identification of transnational implications of ongoing and proposed research efforts. Should the international community wish to advance or restrict any particular technological development pathways in the future, a transparency mechanism would provide the foundational information required to make an informed decision.
Intervention II: establish a global forum
A global forum that brings together a broad suite of civil society actors would be instrumental in working towards Objective 3 on public engagement. Critically, a global forum would create a venue for governmental, intergovernmental and non-state actors to engage in dialogue with a view to building shared norms surrounding SRM governance. As Parson and Ernst (2013) and others have highlighted, such a forum could serve a variety of functions, including engaging the public, advising governments and/or conducting relevant research. It could work to define longer-term governance options for SRM including, for example, the utility of a potential moratorium on deployment, and/or how existing institutions might better coordinate around SRM governance.
A global forum could further create venues for broadly representative expert consultation removed from direct policy decisions, through what Parson (2017) has called a ‘World Commission on Climate Engineering’ (p. 4). A Commission could work to advise governments on issues such as future institutional settings for SRM governance and at what scale field experiments could trigger governance (Parson, 2017), while also taking on board public input through the processes described above.
A forum would be particularly useful for considering issues at the intersection of SRM and other governance domains, such as human rights, biodiversity and/or stratospheric ozone depletion. Although narrower in membership, rough models for such a forum already exist in, for example, the Biodiversity Liaison Group and the UN Chief Executives Board. A global forum should also play an important role in the determination of whether a centralized institutional home is needed for SRM governance.5 Options for such an institutional home might include, for example, the CBD, or London Dumping Convention, which, as noted above, have already been involved in climate engineering governance surrounding ocean fertilization, or the UNFCCC, whose core work is closely aligned with issues related to SRM.
Intervention III: incorporate SRM assessment into the global stocktake under the Paris Agreement
The global stocktake under the Paris Agreement (Article 14) provides a mechanism to ratchet up parties ambitions over time. It is slated to occur every five years, with the first scheduled for 2023. A ‘facilitative dialogue’ will take place in 2018, as a precursor to the global stocktake, designed to generate a new round of 2020 national climate plans (or NDCs). If SRM is ultimately to be assessed in relation to other forms of climate change response, then the global stocktake is an existing mechanism that could be harnessed to begin this process.
That said, NDCs and the global stocktake have been designed to focus on mitigation and adaptation activities. It is not clear, given the structure of the Paris Agreement, how countries might report any current or planned SRM investigation, and no countries have incorporated SRM activities in the first set of NDCs (Craik & Burns, 2016). Some countries may simply choose to reference SRM technologies as part of their NDCs, and/or under existing transparency arrangements, such as national communications or biennial reports.
It would be valuable to have guidance on whether and how SRM could be included in future NDCs, and such guidance should be developed by the Paris Agreement parties during ongoing negotiations on the final form of the global stocktake process. Evaluation of SRM under the global stocktake would help to ensure that Objectives 1 (guard against potential risks), 3 (ensuring informed public engagement) and 4 (ensuring that SRM, if deployed, remains part of a broader mitigation plan), are met.
Designing an international governance architecture for SRM
Overarching design considerations
Before turning to a discussion of specific institutions that might be able to carry out these interventions, we briefly discuss here what overarching international governance architecture might be best suited to SRM governance. We outline three governance design options from the global governance literature, ultimately arguing for a ‘polycentric’ approach in the near term.
As a preliminary matter, it is commonly noted that while SRM technologies could be developed solely within a particular country, any large-scale use or deployment would have transboundary implications. Simultaneously, the disparate set of technologies that fall under the umbrella of SRM do not fit well under any one existing international legal framework due to, for example, their potentially disparate geographical impacts (Armeni & Redgwell, 2015; Reynolds, forthcoming). Most reject, then, the idea of a single institution taking sole responsibility for governance of SRM, at least in the near term (Armeni & Redgwell, 2015; Lloyd & Oppenheimer, 2014).
From this starting point, the global governance literature points to three ways of thinking about the architecture of international governance of SRM.
First, club models are generally lauded for their potential to enhance bargaining efficiency, particularly among great powers, shifting interest structures to lubricate compliance and in their ability to enhance legitimacy of ailing multilateralism (Falkner, 2016). This line of thinking has been applied to SRM, suggesting that SRM’s problem structure may indicate a club model wherein small groups of countries direct governance and broad participation is minimized (Lloyd & Oppenheimer, 2014). Despite the potential benefits of such clubs in facilitating cooperation, in the case of SRM governance, it is yet, in our view, premature to turn to a club model. The benefits of expedient negotiations associated with such models are likely to be undermined in this case by the legitimacy costs of narrow participation (Jinnah et al., 2017). SRM is already a contentious issue that demands broad representative engagement to ensure that backlash, to what would likely be viewed as an illegitimate process, does not undermine consideration of its potential benefits before they are even properly understood. It may be that, in time, a club model will be a plausible way forward for SRM governance; however, near-term term efforts must first attempt to reach broad governance consensus through a participatory multilateral process.
A second body of work has argued that even though SRM technologies are unlikely to be governed solely via a single entity, there is still a need, even in the earliest stages, for one international institution (for instance, the CBD or UNFCCC) to coordinate or ‘orchestrate’ (Dorsch & Flachsland, 2017) governance in this area. Such an approach would generate greater democratic legitimacy than would a club model. In addition, an orchestration model would begin to formalize governance and give it coherence. A central hub for coordination of governance activities or a standalone treaty with broad buy-in may well prove, in time, the most effective way to oversee SRM activities. In the near term, though, there appears little political appetite for a new or existing institution to centralize SRM governance. Further, the crowded agendas of existing relevant bodies suggest it will likely be some time before a single entity emerges in a clear orchestrating role (though, as we indicate below, the processes established by the Paris Agreement may drive the UNFCCC into such a role).
A third design option from the literature points to more purely ‘polycentric’ governance, which is achieved through coordination among a range of existing international agreements and institutions, absent, at least in the near term, a clear ‘lead’ organization (Dorsch & Flachsland, 2017; Galaz, 2012; Reynolds, forthcoming). A related body of work points to ‘regime complexes’ or ‘fragmented governance’ arrangements as an increasingly common and important feature of global governance (Biermann, Pattberg, van Asselt, & Zelli, 2009; Gehring & Faude, 2013; Gupta, Pistorius, & Vijge, 2016; Keohane & Victor, 2011). These polycentric and fragmented structures can, in certain issue areas, have myriad political benefits, including, for example, distributing costs and responsibilities, capitalizing on existing but dispersed institutional resources and securing broad participation (Biermann et al., 2009). Further political benefits, which are critical to the SRM case, include that polycentric approaches are well suited to policy learning, experimentation and adaptability over time, and also facilitate increased communication among civil society actors, which can increase trust needed for international cooperation (Cole, 2015).
Indeed, several authors have already explored SRM governance structures with polycentric and/or fragmented characteristics (e.g. Armeni & Redgwell, 2015; Bodansky, 2013; Reynolds, forthcoming). These contributions largely point to the institutional possibilities and have focused on legal mandates as an impetus for polycentric governance. We argue here that the political advantages of a polycentric structure strongly support these early legalistic interventions. Such political considerations further point to a near-term strategic approach to governance design that secures broad participation, allows policy adaptability as relevant science emerges and takes advantage of existing institutional resources in a highly contested policy space where states have yet to dedicate specialized funds.
Although not the focus of our analysis here, a polycentric approach is also conducive to non-state actor engagement. The polycentric governance literature highlights the prevalence (and often desirability) of engaging actors across sectors and scales (Ostrom, 2010). Although we recognize the importance of transnational and sub-national governance of SRM, several characteristics of SRM suggest, as we have argued above, the need to think most immediately about international-level governance.
That said, we would like to underscore that our international focus does not by any means preclude the importance of sub-state and non-state actors, and/or interaction between such actors in SRM governance. To the contrary, we recognize important contributions that underscore the centrality of these actors in SRM governance.6 We are sympathetic to the suggestion, for example, of a ‘bottom-up’ approach to SRM governance, wherein voluntary norms and rules developed within the civil society community, such as the existing ‘code of conduct for geoengineering research’ (Hubert, Kruger, & Rayner, 2016) trickle up into formal governance arrangements through time (Victor, 2008). The point is that, even with bottom-up efforts, a formal international governance architecture is needed.
Polycentric governance is no panacea. It is not clear, for instance, that a greater number of institutional players in a governance arrangement necessarily generates better outcomes (Newig & Fritsch, 2009). This again suggests that, while a coordinated polycentric arrangement will serve as a pragmatic near-term step, there may well prove a need for a clear lead organization or a club model of governance in the longer term.
Institutional options for near-term SRM governance
This section identifies international organizations that have not only the legal mandates, but the political capabilities and preferences to carry out our three proposed interventions in a polycentric manner. We build on prior analyses of legal mandates that serve as a necessary pre-condition to institutional engagement, by considering political factors that position specific institutions to govern aspects of this space. Specifically, following Dorsch and Flachsland (2017), we focus on site-specific capabilities and preferences that enable particular international organizations to carry out the three specific governance interventions we identify above.
We pay particular attention here to Armeni and Redgwell’s (2015) canvassing of institutional options for SRM governance. We extend Armeni and Redgwell’s work in three ways. First, we bring a temporal dimension to the discussion of governance needs. Armeni and Redgwell’s work offered a general sense of SRM governance requirements, from near-term research to possible future deployment. By focusing on near-term governance priorities, we give a sense of where work is most urgently required. Second, we look to an expanded swathe of the international system. While Armeni and Redgwell’s analysis focused just on treaty bodies, we extend our analysis to international organizations with relevant mandates and/or expertise. Third, complementing Armeni and Redgwell’s legalistic analysis, we focus on the political variables of institutional capabilities and preferences that position specific institutions as able and interested in carrying out specific governance interventions.
Following Dorsch and Flachsland (2017), we evaluate capabilities by looking at material and normative assets that position a particular institution to engage in a specific governance activity. In our case, we look to the material and normative assets available to carry out the three SRM governance interventions identified above. Capabilities need not relate directly to SRM in all circumstances. Capabilities have to do with material assets, such as relevant expertise, skills and/or networks, which are generalizable and suggest a particular institution has the capacity to produce a specific near-term output. We look, for example, to an organization’s experience with building transparency mechanisms and hosting or organizing broad public engagement activities.
Evaluating institutional preferences is more difficult because few states or organizations have articulated preferences for SRM governance. However, some have indicated interest in engaging in climate engineering governance efforts through, for example, relevant reports or workshops, and/or governance decisions. We discuss these activities below as preliminary indication of institutional preferences, whenever possible. When activities directly related to climate engineering do not exist, our preference analysis is limited to observations about an institution’s engagement with analogous matters of transnational governance related to complex emerging technologies or aspects of the broader climate change response.
Intervention III, related to incorporating SRM into the global stocktake, is the most straightforward intervention to evaluate. Because the global stocktake is an official process under the Paris Agreement, the UNFCCC is the most immediate home for such discussions. In particular, the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA), a permanent body established to provide assessment of technological matters as they relate to the UNFCCC and now the Paris Agreement, could be directed to provide guidance to parties on whether and how to account for SRM research or other activities within their NDCs.
The SBSTA has the mandate and requisite expertise to assess the methodological and other technical issues that such a question would generate. To date, the technological focus of the SBSTA has been limited almost exclusively to low-emission technologies and technologies that promote climate resilience, such that the SBSTA has not yet expressed an explicit preference to take up analysis of SRM. There is nothing in the subsidiary body’s mandate, though, prohibiting such work, and the SBSTA has also previously taken up analysis of issues like carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) as it relates to the Clean Development Mechanism, suggesting a readiness for engaging in these types of issues should parties request guidance on how SRM might be incorporated into NDCs. In addition, the SBSTA has, via its Technology Executive Committee and the Climate Technology Centre and Network, the institutional capabilities to promote analysis of SRM technologies alongside other technologies aimed at responding to climate change.
SRM remains a highly contested issue, decisions around which demand public involvement. Centrally, therefore, catalysing discussions about how SRM should be considered in the global stocktake will require coordination and discussion among scientists, states, intergovernmental bodies and civil society actors interested in this issue. Ultimately, should SRM research advance, broader coordination across a range of existing environmental, human rights and other relevant institutions may be necessary. The UNFCCC is well suited to such an ultimate SRM governance coordination role given its permissive mandate, relevant material and normative capabilities, and history of engagement with related activities. Integration of SRM into the global stocktake process would nudge the UNFCCC in this coordinating direction.
In addition to the SBSTA, other UNFCCC bodies also have material and normative assets that position it well to serve this coordination role. The climate change secretariat, in particular, has administrative expertise in coordinating information exchange both between parties and across a wide contingent of international organizations, as well as established networks, which will be crucial in coordinating across such bodies (Jinnah, 2014). As the central body for global governance of climate change with near-universal participation, good relations with other international organizations and well-established policies on participation, engagement and transparency, the UNFCCC has normative claims to legitimate authority in this space (Honegger, Sugathapala, & Michaelowa, 2013; Lin, 2009). These claims are by no means uncontested, with objections based on concerns about development of global governance arrangements before we have adequate scientific knowledge and social preferences about SRM impacts and potential use (Reynolds, 2015). Our sense is that the types of anticipatory governance activities we propose here would actually help to fill such lacuna, and that a polycentric system would position governance to migrate to more appropriate forums over time, if needed.
Aside from a weak signal from SBSTA’s prior engagement on CCS issues as noted above, the UNFCCC member states’ preferences to engage in this space are unclear. The UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP) has yet to engage directly in coordination activities on SRM. However, its plethora of coordination activities in other areas, such as the Joint Liaison Group and the Non-state Actor Zone for Climate Action (NAZCA) portal on non-state climate actions, suggest that UNFCCC member states might be willing to take up coordination, if they decide to take up climate engineering issues at all. This of course remains an open question at the time of writing.
A wider array of institutional loci is possible with respect to interventions I (transparency mechanism) and II (global forum). Although the UNFCCC has a central role to play in many aspects of SRM governance, other organizations are also well positioned to take the near-term lead on the development of a transparency mechanism and a global forum. Here, we focus on three such institutions. The assessment is preliminary. Further assessment of institutional effectiveness is needed, and additional organizations will also have an important role to play in carrying out these two interventions.
First, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has not only the mandate, but also strong capabilities and demonstrated preferences in activities related to developing transparency mechanisms. On mandate, part of the WMO’s core mission has to do with making scientific information more accessible and broadly shared (World Meteorological Organization, 2017). The WMO, further, has demonstrated capabilities in monitoring, storing and making available technical information in areas related to forms of SRM that would involve direct intervention in atmospheric processes. The WMO has demonstrated these capabilities in, for example, establishing an expert team on weather modification research to organize quadrennial research conferences. WMO capabilities in relevant transparency-enhancing activities are also evident in its creation and curation of a Register of National Weather Modification Projects.7
On preferences, the WMO’s World Climate Research Programme has hosted briefings by members of the SRM research community and has explicitly called for ‘research to support informed decisions and policy advice on geoengineering’ in its 2016–2019 operating plan (World Meteorological Organization, 2016). Although this suggests the WMO has an interest in engaging in SRM governance, an obvious problem is that the WMO’s mandate applies strictly to atmospheric matters, such that certain kinds of SRM intervention – ground-based or oceans-based – may be an uneasy fit.
The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) also has established capabilities in coordinating research efforts and in helping countries develop science policy. In particular, UNESCO has developed a niche in the area of science and technology innovation, serving as ‘a technical adviser on policy development and implementation; a standard-setter for national policy reforms; and a catalyst for regional and international cooperation’ (UNESCO, 2017). UNESCO has extensive experience working with other emerging technologies, especially as related to bioethics. In this area, UNESCO has several established programmes aimed at enhancing cross-disciplinary exchange on ethical issues, standards setting, capacity building and creation of codes of conduct. It further hosts a clearinghouse, the Global Ethics Observatory, for institutions, experts, legislation, codes of conduct and global teaching programmes on this issue. This institutional capacity could be quite valuable in initiating research coordination for SRM, and UNESCO’s clearinghouse could be adapted and expanded to the SRM context to include information on research and funding streams. Importantly, though, UNESCO would not be a rulemaking body capable ultimately of controlling the development of particular technologies. UNESCO’s history of engagement with other emerging technologies suggests a preference for SRM governance engagement as well. However, this remains unclear at the time of writing.
All of this suggests that a transparency mechanism could readily be developed by the WMO or UNESCO working alone or collaboratively. Legitimacy and expertise should further be enhanced via partnering with civil society organizations, scientists and other civil society actors, as well as sub-state and private actors (Turkaly, Nicholson, Livingston, & Thompson, 2017).
As the organization principally responsible for coordinating environmental activities across the UN system, UN Environment (formerly the United Nations Environment Programme) could play an important role in building a global forum (intervention II). As a function of its central position in global environmental governance, UN Environment could serve as a convener in bringing together the existing strands of global dialogue under a coordinated and central umbrella. For example, UN Environment has demonstrated capabilities in drawing together international institutions and others for discussion of common issues, through, for example, its current chairmanship of the UN Interagency Coordination Group and its engagement in the UN Chief Executives Board for Coordination. It could apply these capabilities to bring together ongoing discussions about SRM under the CBD and the London Dumping Convention, with any future discussions under the UNFCCC, as related to, for example, the global stocktake.
In addition, UN Environment’s work in broader public engagement has been well demonstrated. UN Environment’s mandate builds from Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration, in furthering ‘access to information, access to public participation and access to justice, as key pillars of sound environmental governance’ (UN Environment, 2017). UN Environment has not only the mandate, but also demonstrated capabilities in advancing public engagement with complex scientific issues through, for example, its Handbook on Stakeholder Engagement, alongside the UN Environment Assembly, and the Major Groups Facilitating Committee, both of which provide guidance and coordinate engagement across stakeholder groups in UN Environment activities.
The above analysis suggests that there are a range of organizations within the international system with mandates, institutional capabilities and established preferences relevant to essential near-term SRM governance activities. Ultimately, the UNFCCC may emerge as the hub of such activities. In the near term, however, governance can meaningfully emerge in a more polycentric fashion, with organizations such as the WMO and UNESCO developing mechanisms for greater transparency, and organizations like UN Environment establishing greater degrees of global dialogue and coordination across and between relevant actors.
Conclusions and recommendations
There is no way to sidestep consideration of SRM. That we highlight this fact should not be read as an argument for development of SRM technologies, nor should it be taken to mean that the governance of SRM is a straightforward task. Rather, it is simply to point out that the 1.5°C target will prove difficult to meet through traditional mitigation measures alone, and moreover, that research concerning SRM options is already taking place. In this way, ‘pursuing efforts’ to limit atmospheric warming to 1.5°C ensures that SRM will receive greater scientific and policy consideration, such that the effective governance of SRM is an emerging priority.
Tackling climate change means developing forms of social organization that are compatible in the long term with ecological realities. SRM would do nothing useful were it not accompanied by work to transform the social arrangements that put greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in the first place. Nevertheless, given the severity of projected climate impacts coupled with the slow pace of political action and the persistence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, SRM might in future provide a lifeline to buy the world time to draw down atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations so as to achieve the 1.5 degree goal. This is an unfortunate reality that we must consider even should we hope to never have to use these technologies.
Against this backdrop, we have proposed a set of concrete near-term policy interventions:
Intervention I: Develop a transparency mechanism – an international public registry, clearinghouse or other formal database – to shed light on and enable better coordination among climate engineering research and national-level governance efforts;
Intervention II: Establish a global forum – to invite public input and initiate dialogue between key actors with a view towards norm building around appropriate research and control of SRM technologies; and to advise governments and/or international organizations on climate engineering issues.
Intervention III: Incorporate evaluation of SRM technologies into the global stocktake under the Paris Agreement.
The analysis offered here can be built on by, for example, the development of a more comprehensive evaluation of institutional effectiveness across a wider array of international organizations, and by the beginning of the practical work of engaging relevant organizations in the development of near-term SRM governance mechanisms. The potential social, ethical and biophysical risks associated with SRM suggest that near-term governance is necessary to get ahead of any possible future deployment, or to find ways to halt the development of particular SRM technologies should they prove dangerous or not readily managed within existing or future international frameworks or institutions. The 1.5 degree goal is an impetus to action on the anticipatory governance of SRM. Moreover, this is an important moment to take an initial set of steps, before technological development outpaces the possibilities for careful and robust governance, and/or civic discourse closes off options before risks and potentials are even scientifically understood.
Related Research Data
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Janos Pasztor, Ted Parson, Jesse Reynolds, and several members of the Academic Working Group on International Governance of Climate Engineering, for their comments on earlier versions of this manuscript.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
ORCID
Sikina Jinnah http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4528-3000
Notes
1. Our institutional map is not comprehensive; there are issues we cannot address or even anticipate at this stage given the emergent nature of the technologies and the muted political discussions surrounding them. Further, additional research is needed to evaluate the potential effectiveness of these institutions in grappling with the specific governance needs we identify.
2. By ‘near term’ we mean governance initiatives that should be developed immediately. The length of time it will take to develop each mechanism will vary, but we expect all can be launched within five years should discussions begin now.
3. A central line of reasoning in this vein would have it that all who will be impacted by SRM deserve some say in decision-making, but that the international system does not provide any sufficient means by which development of something so contentious as SRM could be meaningfully discussed or agreed upon (Hulme, 2014).
4. Two of the authors of this article are members of the AWG, and the third is a co-executive director of the Forum for Climate Engineering Assessment, the body overseeing and coordinating the AWG’s work. See www.ceassessment.org for additional information on the AWG and its outputs.
5. Note that a legitimate global forum process would not just seek leadership from existing international organizations but would also seek representation from existing organizations. The process should allow for some self-selection in this regard, such that intergovernmental organizations that wish to participate in the global forum should have an opportunity to do so.
6. See Reynolds (forthcoming) for an excellent review of these contributions to date.
7. The Register is now discontinued. Additional research is needed to evaluate to what extent its discontinuation was a function of the WMO’s capabilities. More available here: https://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/arep/wwrp/new/wea_mod_register_2007.html.