The economics of geoengineering - Book Chapter

[Geoengineering News]

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/chapter/edited-volume/abs/pii/B9780128141045000259

Authors: Anthony Harding, Juan B. Moreno-Cruz

16 November 2025

https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-814104-5.00025-9

Abstract

Geoengineering provides an alternative strategy from abatement to counteract or mask impacts of anthropogenic climate change. Geoengineering strategies can be classified as either solar radiation management (SRM) or carbon dioxide removal (CDR). SRM strategies are cheap, quick, but imperfect. CDR strategies are expensive, slow, but perfect and can generate negative net emissions. High abatement costs and shared global benefits have created a free-rider problem, but properties of geoengineering have the potential to disrupt that impasse. Geoengineering can also introduce new problems through additional risks and uncertainties. Even if the use of geoengineering is found to be optimal, strategic decision making may produce suboptimal outcomes. Over the past decade, research has examined if geoengineering is a serious alternative and when the benefits of using it outweigh the costs.

Source: ScienceDirect