Climate Engineering Still Not A Viable Option

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A new European-wide analysis has concluded that climate engineering, also known as geoengineering, is not a viable European near-term climate policy.

The report, European Transdisciplinary Assessment of Climate Engineering (EuTRACE), was funded by the European Union, and brought together researchers and scientists from 14 European partners institutions, covering a wide range of knowledge on climate engineering.

The ultimate finding from the report was in line with a number of previous reports which have come beforehand — namely, any methods that could possibly be categorized as climate engineering or geoengineering are not a viable near-term option for reducing climate change within the next decade or decades. The report concluded that any greenhouse gas removal techniques or albedo modifications can simply not be counted on.

“It is important to understand the possibilities and problems associated with climate engineering proposals, in order to make decisions on them in a responsible manner,” explained Professor Mark Lawrence, project coordinator of EuTRACE and Scientific Director of the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) Potsdam. “But it would be irresponsible, based on all we know so far, to expect climate engineering to significantly contribute to solving the problem of climate change in the next several decades. We will only be able to limit the effects of climate change if all states commit to drastically reducing their CO2 emissions, at the Climate Summit in Paris and beyond, following through on that commitment in the years thereafter.”

Climate Engineering

The authors of the report are not afraid to consider the possibility of climate engineering in the future — stating that “greenhouse gas removal techniques could possibly be used someday to significantly reduce the amount of anthropogenic CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” and that such techniques “could present an important long-term opportunity to limit or partly reverse climate change.”

Unsurprisingly though, the authors are quick to clarify their hope for climate engineering by warning of “numerous scientific and technical challenges,” including:

• determining whether the techniques could be scaled up from current prototypes, and what the costs of this might be;
• determining the constraints imposed by various technique-dependent factors, such as available biomass;
• developing the very large-scale infrastructures and energy inputs, along with the accompanying financial and legal structures, that most of the proposed techniques would require; based on existing knowledge and experience, this could take many decades before it could have a significant impact on global CO2 concentrations.

Albedo Modifications

Turning to albedo modification specifically, the authors note that “initial model simulations have shown that several proposed techniques could potentially be used to cool the climate significantly and rapidly.” How rapidly? “Within a year or less, and possibly at relatively low operational costs.” The authors further add that such a technique is the “only known method that could potentially be implemented to reduce the near-term impacts of unmitigated global warming.”

What’s stopping us then? The authors are quite blunt in their appraisal:

“However, in addition to the societal concerns outlined in the next section, it is unclear whether any of the proposed albedo modification techniques would ever be technically feasible.”

As with climate engineering, there are numerous scientific and technical challenges that the authors believe would first need to be addressed before such albedo modifications could be seriously considered, including:

• very large and costly infrastructures that land-based techniques would require;
• delivery mechanisms for techniques based on injection of aerosol particles into the atmosphere, including delivery vessels (e.g., high-flying aircraft or tethered balloons) and associated nozzle technologies;
• a much deeper understanding of the underlying physical processes, such as the microphysics of particles and clouds, as well as how modification of these would affect the climate on a global and regional basis.

Societal Concerns

In addition to the raw scientific and technical challenges facing such engineering claims, the authors of the report also addressed the societal context any such modifications would take place in. They note numerous concerns that they believe would arise, including:

• public awareness and perception
• the “moral hazard” argument (the concern that research on climate engineering would discourage the overall efforts to reduce or avoid emissions of greenhouse gases)
• the sense of environmental responsibility in the Anthropocene
• possible effects of various climate engineering techniques on human security, conflict risks, and societal stability
• expected economic impacts
• justice considerations, including the distribution of benefits and costs, procedural justice for democratic decision making, and compensation for harms imposed on some regions by measures that benefit others.

The final point is one of the most concerning that researchers and policy-makers have been dealing with for many years now. Specifically, what would happen if a country or entity acted unilaterally or independently of global opinion. With no international body set up to monitor and legislate such activity, there is no small amount of concern that an entity could act on their own without global consensus, approval, or permission.

The full report is available for reading at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies Potsdam EuTRACE website.