New NGO: The Alliance for Just Deliberation on Solar Geoengineering (DSG)
Geoengineering News
ABOUT
The Alliance for Just Deliberation on Solar Geoengineering (DSG) is a new NGO that is in the process of obtaining non-profit 501(c)(3) classification, launched in April 2023. DSG was created around a mission to work towards just and inclusive deliberation about research and potential use of solar geoengineering.
Importantly, DSG is not advocacy oriented (i.e. not advocating for or against solar geoengineering deployment). Rather, it focuses on empowering civil society and other policy actors to engage in solar geoengineering policy and decisionmaking. Take a closer look at our mission and principles.
WHY DO THIS WORK?
The state of climate impacts on human systems are growing in severity. The IPCC sixth assessment report indicates that climate change has had adverse impacts on water and food security, public health, infrastructure, and across economic sectors. These impacts are significantly worsening across many regions, especially in the Global South.
Solar geoengineering is a small but growing field with recent momentum across the public, private, and academic sectors. Research efforts are expanding, there has been a significant increase in focus on solar geoengineering policy both domestically in the United States and globally, and press coverage is mounting. This attention is driven by rising concerns that reducing emissions and scaling up carbon dioxide removal will be insufficient to limit severe and worsening climate impacts. Many processes and organizations with strong influence, such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the U.S. National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine are beginning to raise discussion around these controversial proposed methods of reflecting sunlight away from the planet. In its recent 2023 report, UNEP is now calling for more just and inclusive deliberation on this technology.
Even though there is growing scientific attention, the policy and research space is stuck in a vicious cycle. Right now, the contentious nature of the field is the main driver of how solar geoengineering is perceived. With only the loudest and most oppositional voices heard, it is challenging to build a legitimate discourse around governance and research.
As a result, U.S. and international environmental NGOs have largely been unable or unwilling to find pathways to productively engage, leaving the space empty of constructive civil society voices – a key sector to both building policy and holding governments accountable. With this lack of widespread involvement, the existing narratives lead to Global North actors in academia and a small group of organizations speaking on behalf of climate vulnerable communities and nations in the Global South.
There is a clear and critical need for the perspectives of climate vulnerable communities and nations to be centered in the solar geoengineering conversation. These are the populations with most to gain or most to lose from solar geoengineering knowledge and research efforts. The need for input from a diversity of voices is widely acknowledged across the actors in the space, yet there is little focus on how to meaningfully do so. The ability to engage in international forums on this topic is only possible through an informed set of participants, including both policymakers and civil society organizations.
There is a narrow window of opportunity to engage with these difficult realities and push for change. In the current moment, many organizations give occasional lip service to inclusion and justice, but this field requires an organization that is committed to this as part of its foundational mission. DSG will especially focus on procedural justice, which refers to fairness in decisionmaking and resource allocation.
THE DSG VISION
In the future, DSG is working toward a more globally participatory and inclusive governance system for solar geoengineering research and potential deployment. Such a system will enable informed climate vulnerable and historically marginalized communities to be engaged in decisionmaking processes that have representative voices across sectors.
"Message from the Founder" ⬇️
"WHY I FOUNDED DSG"
By Shuchi Talati, Founder & Executive Director
I learned about the concept of solar geoengineering almost 15 years ago. Over that time, there has been a deep taboo surrounding this topic within the climate community. But with climate impacts more severe, frequent and clear, and an entirely inadequate response, there is a palpable shift happening. More research is happening, and more governments are beginning to consider what role solar geoengineering might play.
The drive to limit harm from climate change is common ground we all share. The reason I work in the solar geoengineering space, and the reason many work in this field, is that it may have the potential to limit human suffering. This should be the only reason to consider the use of such a technology. At the moment though, we don’t yet know whether or not solar geoengineering could play such a role. This is true of the science, but also because we don’t yet know what many climate vulnerable communities want.
Decisions around solar geoengineering cannot be made in ways that speak on behalf of others, exacerbate injustices, or violate human rights. This is true at opposite ends of the advocacy spectrum. It would be unjust and unacceptable to try to shut down discussion at this moment, before frontline communities even have a chance to consider what role solar geoengineering could play if any. It would likewise be unacceptable to attempt to deploy solar geoengineering in a unilateral way without any input, engagement or involvement of those with the most to gain or lose from such an action. To be clear, people should be empowered to speak for themselves, and that is not the case right now. The dominant narratives about solar geoengineering are not written collectively.
We are at a very clear inflection point, where solar geoengineering does not yet exist and the future of the field is yet to be written – but interest is growing. Regardless of what some might say, it is not inevitably destined for failure, nor is it inevitably going to lead to good outcomes. Absolute claims about solar geoengineering risk creating the impression that we know enough about how it could work to move ahead or to reject it outright, or that we know enough about whether people, particularly people on the frontlines of climate impacts and climate injustice, want it considered or not. But there is a narrow window of opportunity to shape the future of solar geoengineering – the idea, the research, the politics, the governance – in a way that advances justice. Solar geoengineering has the potential to be an important additional tool to reduce human suffering from climate change, and it has the potential to worsen it.
Ideal governance systems don’t exist in any field or in any country. I founded DSG in the context of an imperfect world to work towards creating inclusive systems around solar geoengineering governance to make strides in the direction of justice. Getting to any version of good governance requires building and sharing knowledge, elevating marginalized and vulnerable voices, and not assigning agendas. I’m incredibly excited for the opportunity to try and build more collaborations, partnerships, and inclusion in a space that has remained exclusive for too long.
© 2023 The Alliance for Just Deliberation on Solar Geoengineering