Fwd: Climate Engineering as a Communication Challenge: Contested Notions of Responsibility Across Expert Arenas of Science and Policy - Nils Matzner, Daniel Barben,

[Andrew Lockley]

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1075547019899408

Climate Engineering 

as a Communication 

Challenge: Contested 

Notions of Responsibility 

Across Expert Arenas of 

Science and Policy

Nils Matzner1 and Daniel Barben1

Abstract

Climate engineering (CE) is often said to bring about significant opportunities 

as well as risks. The pursuit of CE measures can be framed as either responsible 

or irresponsible, resulting in contentious and ambiguous communication. 

This article starts out from a notion of responsibility regarding subjects, 

objects, norms, and authorities. It will identify and analyze discursive patterns 

of responsibility across six expert arenas and provide a comparative mapping 

of these patterns. Better understanding controversy may help in finding 

common ground for designing research and policy strategies around CE. 

Taking on the challenges of communicating CE-related responsibilities would 

support CE governance.

Keywords

geoengineering, global warming, framing, discourse analysis, responsibility, 

governance

Discussion and Conclusion

We presented six patterns of responsibility that we had identified in CE dis-

courses across six expert arenas: (A) humankind manages the planet, (B) the

global north polluted the planet, (C) humankind has to mitigate its emissions,

(D) scientists are responsible for research and research governance, (E) gov-

ernments are responsible for research governance, and (F) international bodies

should be responsible for deployment governance. Hereby, we could hardly

detect conceptualizations that are characteristic for one particular arena.

The analysis of the six patterns helps us understand CE-related responsi-

bility issues, including wider implications to be discussed in the following

three subsections.

Vagueness, Diversity, and Polysemy of Responsibility

Our analysis has shown that responsibility is an important reference in the

CE discourse. However, patterns of responsibility are often implicit, vague,

and diverse. One explanation for this is that responsibility is a “polysemic”

concept (Pellé & Reber, 2013) with multiple but related meanings within a

word field. It often occurs that some actors pick a particular meaning from

the word field of responsibility to build an argument, while others refer to

another meaning to formulate an opposite argument. One may argue that CE

is either a responsible or an irresponsible response to climate change, due to

its cooling effects, on the one hand, or its environmental risks, on the other

(Barben, 2015, p. 208). Our results correspond to ambiguities found in CE

reports that display a “mix of openness and attempts at bridging across posi-

tions, with carefully drawn battle lines” (Markusson, 2013, p. 31). The

debate over responsible research, development, and deployment of CE has

not led to a common understanding yet. A broadly shared middle ground

exists for strengthening mitigation policy, a cautious treatment of CE field

experiments, a need for research governance, and refraining from early

deployment of CE technologies. Apart from that, some actors push for more

research and early development, while others would like to see CE under

rigorous regulation, or even banned.

We conclude—in line with Bellamy et al. (2013)—that a debate on which

norms should be applied to climate change and in particular to CE research

and policy has to be “opened up.” We identified normative positions, such as

“planetary protection” or “democratic governance,” that are crucial for

understanding what “responsible CE” may mean. As our research showed,

discourse participants often neglect to declare on what normative grounds

their assignments of responsibility are built.

Responsibility and Governance of Climate Engineering

Based on an in-depth reading of the documents, we found that compared with 

discussions on notions of responsibility, CE experts discuss issues of gover-

nance in a much more nuanced manner. Calls for governing CE (e.g., “A char-

ter for geoengineering,” 2012; Pasztor, 2017) are more vocal than those for 

responsible research and decision making (e.g., Hubert & Reichwein, 2015). 

Proposals for CE governance from social sciences (W. C. G. Burns & 

Nicholson, 2016), science commentaries (Caldeira & Keith, 2010), and policy 

advice (Royal Society, 2009) are numerous. Although some governance pro-

posals are vague, they are often more focused than responsibility arguments.

As our research has shown, three out of six responsibility patterns (D, E, 

F) directly relate to governance. Furthermore, planetary management (A), 

responsibility for historic emissions (B), and insufficient mitigation efforts 

(C) address some governance issues and shortcomings. Consequently, fram-

ings of responsibility take place in a wider context of risk, uncertainty, and 

governance considerations. One reason for the vagueness and indeterminacy 

in the responsibility discourse could lie in the overshadowing significance of 

pressing governance issues—for example, the regulation of CE patenting or 

of transboundary effects. Responsibility claims are subsequently framed as 

governance issues. Patterns E and F also link these responsibility-to-gover-

nance claims with a political type of responsibility, despite the fact that there 

is no elaborate de facto governance of CE in place (yet). Interestingly, 

Patterns E and F lack a correlation with moral responsibility, which means 

that there is no accounting for ethically irresponsible governance in the 

responsibility-to-governance claims.

The sociologist Franz-Xaver Kaufmann (1992) recognized a “call for 

responsibility” where responsibility is used as a panacea. Such a call often indi-

cates a lack of governance. Since the early modern period, philosophers of the 

state (e.g., Hobbes and Rousseau) recognized the need for directing actions 

where a government’s power ends. Contemporary governance theory (over-

view in Offe, 2008) comes with a much broader and less top-down view on 

deliberation and decision making. However, responsibility is still of auxiliary 

value, especially where governance does not regulate human agency. From this 

point of view, the lack of a more nuanced debate about responsibility and CE is 

surprising. Developing further ideas of responsible research, development, 

public engagement, and possible deployment could help CE evolve with social 

consciousness, in a situation where appropriate governance is not yet in place.

The dynamics, pervasiveness, and ambiguity of new and emerging sci-

ence and technology motivated the establishment of various forms of TA, 

such as parliamentary TA, constructive TA (Rip et al., 1995), real-time TA and anticipatory governance (Barben et al., 2008), and responsible research

and innovation (Owen et al., 2013). Taking on the challenges of communi-

cating CE-related responsibilities would support these efforts. Future

research on CE-related responsibility discourse may further clarify rela-

tionships among changes in responsibility patterns, socio-technical con-

figurations of CE research and governance, and in global and regional

climate change impacts.