The whiter a cloud, the better it reflects sunlight. Because this provides cooling, it seems useful – and perhaps also cheap – to dim the sunlight with white clouds and thus prevent some of the global warming. It could be an opportunity to intervene directly in the climate, without having to immediately put an end to the use of fossil fuels.
You can dim sunlight in many ways. You can sail around the Arctic on boats that, like small cloud factories, atomize seawater and blow it into the air. You can inject particles into the stratosphere, simulating a volcanic eruption, which is known to temporarily lower temperatures. Or you can even – very futuristically – place satellites with mirrors in the atmosphere that send sunlight back into space before it even comes close to Earth.
On Thursday, a committee led by former politician and former director of the World Trade Organization Pascal Lamy published the report Reducing the Risk of Climate Overshoot, about the possibilities and risks of this type of intervention in the weather system. Not so long ago, these types of techniques were considered science fiction, but now that the possibilities are becoming increasingly realistic, the committee believes it is high time to think about how you could use them. Who decides on the use of these technologies? What criteria should be used? How should countries deal with the possible consequences?
The Netherlands should never focus on geo-engineeringscientists previously stated in NRC
Although the committee has been extensively informed about scientific developments, it mainly consists of former heads of state, heads of government and ministers – such as former presidents of the island state of Kiribati and Niger, a Canadian former prime minister, an Indonesian former minister of Finance, and the director of the European Climate Foundation, which was closely involved in the realization of the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015. Chairman Pascal Lamy is currently vice-chairman of the Paris Peace Forum, a think tank on geopolitics.
The committee calls itself the Overshoot Commission, the exceedance committee, with a reference to the one and a half degree warming, which is mentioned in the Paris Climate Agreement as a limit that the world should not go too far beyond. But the chance that this will happen is now considered very high by most climate scientists. For many, the question is no longer how the world can stay below one and a half degrees, but how to return to that one and a half degrees if the planet shoots over it anyway.
Solar radiation modification (SRM), as the scientific name is for technologies to dim sunlight, should not be ruled out in that case, the committee concludes. But SRM should only be used as a last resort. Before that happens, the consequences and risks need to be better mapped out and consideration must be given to how the international community may decide to use SRM. Until then, the committee calls for an international moratorium, a temporary ban, on experiments with this technology.
No techno fix
Commission President Lamy is aware that even thinking about the technological options for dimming sunlight is controversial – he himself also has serious doubts about whether it is a good idea. “But the fact that it is controversial cannot be a reason not to look at it seriously,” Lamy said when presenting the report.
Anyone who had hoped that the report would advocate a technofix will be disappointed, according to Lamy. According to the committee, the most important thing remains to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (accelerated), to store greenhouse gases, both in empty gas fields and naturally by planting trees, and to adapt the world to the consequences of climate change . But if nothing else works, Lamy concludes, it is good to know whether and how SRM can help humanity.
Research into climate modification increases our risk of eventual catastrophe
Jeroen Oomen political scientist
For critics, this still goes way too far. Climate scientist Youba Sokona, vice-chair of the United Nations Scientific Climate Panel (IPCC), was initially involved in setting up the Overshoot Commission, but did not want to become a member when he noticed that the discussion would focus too much on SRM. Just the discussion about it he thinks “much too premature”.
Ben Sanderson, a climate scientist at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research, agrees. “By expanding research, the idea of SRM is becoming more normalized,” he said against the Climate Home News website, “while distracting from real greenhouse gas reductions.” But according to James Haywood, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Exeter, everyone knows that existing measures to reduce greenhouse gases will not keep humanity below one and a half degrees of warming. “It is therefore wise to see whether SRM can be used to reduce the worst consequences of climate change.”
Misleading comparisons
It is a discussion that is also being had in the Netherlands. “Research into climate modification can be seen as an insurance policy if things go very wrong with climate change,” said climate physicist Claudia Wieners this spring. NRC. She compared technologies such as SRM to fire insurance, which everyone hopes they never need. But according to political scientist Jeroen Oomen, these types of comparisons are misleading. “Because fire insurance does not increase the chance that your house will burn down. Research into climate modification does mean that we have a greater risk of eventual catastrophe.”
Also read: Investigating a technofix for the climate is dangerous. Or is it actually necessary?
In January 2022, a large group of scientists – now more than 440 from more than sixty countries – advocated an open letter to the United Nations for a moratorium on the use of SRM. But they go further than the authors of the new report. According to the signatories, the consequences of these types of technologies are incalculable and in fact an experiment with the entire planet as a guinea pig would be necessary to gain clarity about this. It shouldn’t get to this point. Moreover, they fear that the mere hope of a future technofix will distract from the necessary transition to a world without fossil fuels.
And finally, the signatories say, there is no reason to have confidence in the current global governance system, which they say is “not fit for purpose.” [is] to develop and implement the far-reaching agreements necessary for fair, inclusive and effective political control” over this technology.
That may be so, said Pascal Lamy last month in the Financial Timesbut “ultimately we have to use all the options that we know work, even if they may still be among the uncertain solutions at the moment.”
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