The Big Green Button: Stratospheric Aerosol Injection as a Geopolitical Dilemma During Strategic Competition Between the United States and China, and Implications for Expanding Aerosol Injection Near-term Research

[Geoengineering News]

https://academic.oup.com/oocc/advance-article/doi/10.1093/oxfclm/kgaf009/8042357?searchresult=1

Authors 

Jeffrey Nielsen

https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfclm/kgaf009

Published: 25 February 2025

Abstract

This research examines stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) policy options through a dyadic international relations framework between the United States and People’s Republic of China (China). Deploying large-scale SAI to manage solar radiation presents states with a novel source of geopolitical influence through influencing global climate systems. While multiple political bodies like the United Nations, European Union, United States, China, and India could feasibly deploy SAI without full global consent, the United States and China are powerful enough to deploy large-scale SAI unilaterally. The United States and China currently perceive themselves as locked in “great power competition” with each other which exposes a mutual SAI national security gap and accompanying policy dilemma. Given their divergent global power strategies but mutual global climate interests, this research assesses how the United States and China could compete or cooperate on SAI strategies. This research’s dyadic analysis of four policy scenarios provides three conclusions. First, the United States and China could each benefit from SAI cooperation whether they are cooperating to deter or deploy SAI. Second, SAI cooperation presents a potential political off-ramp from great power competition that aligns with each state’s mutual climate security interests. Third, expanding SAI research and conventional mitigation could support near-term United States and China policymaking regardless of whether they ultimately pursue SAI deployment or deterrence strategies. SAI advocates and critics alike can use these scenarios and conclusions to better discuss SAI as a geopolitical security dilemma.

Source: Oxford Open Climate Change