Global Trends 2040

[Adrien Abecassis]

SRM mentioned in the Global Trends 2040 report of the National Intelligence Council: https://www.dni.gov/index.php/gt2040-media-and-downloads

"Calls for Geoengineering

As warming gets closer to exceeding the Paris Agreement goals, it is increasingly likely that states and nonstate actors will more aggres-sively research, test, and possibly deploy geo-engineering measures—deliberate large-scale interventions in the earth’s natural systems—to try to counteract climate change. Current research is largely focused on solar radiation management (SRM), an effort to cool the planet by reflecting the suns energy back into space. Stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), a form of SRM that sprays particles in the strato-sphere to cause global dimming, has attracted funding by those who fear the worst of climate change. Proponents argue that the needed energy transformation will happen too slowly and that SAI can buy the planet time because it is technologically feasible and less expensive than mitigation.

Current research is almost entirely in comput-er models with academia, nongovernmental organizations, and private companies playing a leading role. However, there will be in-creased calls for countries to begin engaging in the dialogue and possibly take leadership to develop international agreements that could help set research standards, ensure transpar-ency in live tests, determine the legal frame-work around if, how, and when to deploy SRM technologies, and monitor the effects. The possibly catastrophic unintended side effects are not well understood, and some scientists fear that SRM, while keeping temperatures down, would create unexpected and devastat-ing changes in weather systems and rainfall patterns. Countries and nonstate actors de-ploying it alone will increase the risk of conflict and blowback, especially when others blame them for a disaster they believe was caused by geoengineering."