Geoengineering in Germany and South Africa: Between Normalization and Emancipative Catastrophism - Book Chapter

[Geoengineering News]

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-032-11497-6_8

Authors: Iris Hilbrich

13 May 2026

Abstract

Controversial discussions about large-scale technological interventions into the Earth system to battle climate change, so-called geoengineering, condense fundamental questions about sustainable development, intergenerational equity and regional justice. However, most of these technologies only exist as blueprints to future technological innovation. Moreover, the discursive construction of technological responses to climate change differs fundamentally when adopting a spatial perspective. Vulnerable countries in the Global South are exposed to different threats than comparatively stronger industrialized nations and are particularly compromised when their voices are being excluded from the discourse. Based on a qualitative empirical analysis with German and South African scientists, the comparative study highlights that researchers’ perspectives entail very different imaginaries of risk based on their location, which in turn point to hegemonies within the discourses around geoengineering and climate change. Following Ulrich Beck’s (2015) notion of emancipatory catastrophism, this chapter asks whether even dystopian imaginaries of blocking the sun offer a transformative potential, by highlighting the unequal distribution of climate change-related risks. Therefore, this contribution argues that an analysis of technological innovation sensitive to spatial differences and neocolonial continuities is paramount for technology assessment and global governance strategies for high-risk technologies.

Source: Springer Nature Link