It's too early to jump to a conclusion on climate intervention
ayesha iqbal
It's too early to jump to a conclusion on climate intervention
2022 was bookended by two efforts to jump to an early conclusion to the difficult question of climate intervention, the campaign for a "non-use" agreement and the launch of a for-profit stratosphere
Almost everyone finds climate intervention an unsettling idea, including those of us who reluctantly study it. We wish greater progress on emissions cuts had been made and that there was no need to consider it. However, we worry about the growing risks of climate change and so we take seriously an idea that might have the potential to substantially reduce those risks. We also take the ethical and governance challenges it poses seriously too. The ambiguity of climate intervention makes it an uncomfortable topic to work on, and what makes it more difficult is knowing that we've got a lot more work to do. We're a long way from having all the evidence needed for an informed decision on whether and how we should deploy it.
2022 saw 2 major efforts to break with the tradition of reluctant consideration that has defined climate intervention to date. The year opened with a campaign for a "non-use" agreement and closed with a for-profit start up trying to crowd-fund the deplotyment of stratospheric climate intervention. Both of these efforts seem to be done considering climate intervention, but have reached polar opposite conclusions.
Enough consideration, it's time to stop
The "non-use" agreement campaign was spear-headed by a peer-reviewed article published in WIRES climate change in January 2022, and supported by an open letter, slick website, and social media campaign. The main arguments that the authors of that article make were first put succinctly by Mike Hulme in his 2013 book on climate intervention. They believe climate intervention is unnecessary, undesirable, and, crucially, ungovernable. The authors claim that the current world order cannot govern it in an inclusive and just manner and they argue that it should not be further developed as doing so will only distract from urgently needed emissions cuts.
The article and open letter argue that governments, funding bodies and international organizations should sign up to this "non-use" agreement, and commit to the following:
- No public funding for the development of SRM technologies,
- No outdoor experiments,
- No patents on SRM technologies,
- No support in international institutions, including in assessments by the IPCC,
- No deployment
While it is billed as a "non-use" agreement, it might be fairer to describe it as a "no-study" agreement given that 4 of its 5 commitments aim to restrict intellectual activity on the topic. While it would not prohibit research into climate intervention, with the exception of outdoor experiments, it is clearly intended to have a broader chilling effect on research: "... this would make such technologies increasingly unattractive for any serious research group to invest in." The hundreds of scholars who have signed this letter (which include only a handful of the hundreds who have published on the topic) are effectively claiming to know enough to know that we should not consider this issue further.
Enough consideration, it's time to go!
Jesse Reynolds and I recently interviewed Luke Iseman, the founder of the climate intervention start-up Make Sunsets, for our podcast. In that conversation, he outlined the breakneck speed at which he moved from first learning about climate intervention to implementation. In January 2022, Luke was fatalistic about the threat posed by climate change and had little hope that we would address it. That was when he read Neal Stephenson's "termination shock," a sci-fi novel about a texan billionaire unilaterally implementing climate intervention. He started researching climate intervention and became convinced that it offered hope, but was dismayed by the slow progress that was being made.
By April 2022, he had swung from considering the issue into action. He bought some high-altitude weather balloons from Amazon and delivered them to his address in Mexico. As he filled the balloons with helium he also wafted the fumes from burning sulphur into the balloon envelope. By releasing the balloons he hoped to conduct the world's first (miniscule) deployment of stratospheric climate intervention (though, he has no evidence the balloons reached the stratosphere).
This wasn't just a stunt, it was also a proof-of-concept that Luke used as part of a business case. Using his connections to the start-up world forged by his years at Y-combinator, the silicon valley start-up incubator, he secured $750k to launch the world's first SRM start-up. In December, Make Sunsets went public with its effort to crowd fund climate intervention deployment by selling "cooling credits." They also announced plans to launch another round of sulphur-laden balloons from Mexico in January 2023.
When news of Make Sunsets' venture broke, the reaction of the research community that studies climate intervention was universally negative as was most of the media coverage. Within weeks, the Mexican environmental agency announced plans to prohibit climate intervention activities within its borders.
If only it were so easy
Whether, and how, to develop climate intervention is an incredibly difficult question. It's also an unsettling, or even disturbing, question. Given this, It's understandable that some wish to jump to a conclusion, to put an end to the uncertainty and disquiet that comes with considering it. However, the risks of climate change are dire enough that we should think extremely hard before taking any options off the table, and deploying climate intervention would have such far-reaching and uncertain implications it would be incredibly foolish to jump straight into it.
No, as comforting as it would be to jump to a conclusion, the only sensible way forward at this time is to keep carefully considering this difficult question. To conduct research that will reduce its uncertainties, to think through its full range of implications, and to have the conversations that will help us feel our way through its ambiguities.