Coupling for climate intervention: Sectoral and sustainability couplings for carbon removal and solar geoengineering pathways

[Geoengineering News]

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162523004195

Authors

Chad M. Baum, Sean Low, Benjamin K. Sovacool

19 July 2023

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2023.122734

Highlights

• •Interviews with 125 experts are used to highlight key couplings for climate-intervention technologies
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• •Salient couplings are characterized vis-à-vis sectoral and sustainability dimensions and positivity and directness of impacts
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• •Examining couplings provides insights into prerequisites for effectiveness and helps identify key actors and resources
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• •Importance of emphasizing potential tradeoffs and central risks demonstrates need to engage stakeholders early on

Abstract

Solar geoengineering and negative-emissions technologies are attracting greater attention as prospective ways to tackle and mitigate the worst impacts of climate change. Until now, such options have rarely been examined in a comprehensive manner. Rather, insofar as this has been done, research focused on one or the other, rather than considering a portfolio contribution and, more often, has taken a sectoral approach that looks at the options germane to the agriculture or energy sectors, but not in relation to climate change. Arguing for the need for a wider lens, the current article aims to understand the kinds of couplings and linkages most germane for the effectiveness of a particular option. In specific, we employed a novel dataset garnered from a large expert-interview exercise (N = 125) to conceptualize and consider crucial couplings to solar radiation management and carbon dioxide removal at many levels (across different sectors, differing dimensions of sustainability, productive or destructive impacts, and direct and indirect relationships). Our analysis thereby provides insights into the understanding of climate transitions by explicitly considering the most salient couplings in general as well as how, and to what extent, the various options relate to each other, as a portfolio for climate intervention, and together to climate mitigation and adaptation.

Fig. 1. Diffuse sectoral couplings to solar radiation management and carbon dioxide removal.

Note: Bubbles are sized to reflect their prominence across the set of experts, regarding how frequently they were mentioned. Placement is undertaken to highlight conceptual similarities between categories, but without indicating any assessment of importance, or linking potential couplings to a specific class of technologies.

Source: ScienceDirect