PRAG meeting to discuss a group submission on EU Arctic policy: Monday 9th March, 9 pm UK time

[John Nissen]

Hi everyone,

Note that 9 pm UK time is 5 pm EDT and 2 pm PST, as clocks have changed in the US, but not yet in the UK.  It will be 8 am AEDT.  All are welcome.  The main agenda item is approval of text for submission to the EU on behalf of PRAG.  But personal submissions are encouraged.

I am currently trying to restructure our submission to have a paragraph or two on each of the four tipping points.  But this is what Claude has produced so far, working on my original text:

The EU needs a fundamental rethink of its Arctic policy. The Arctic is the primary driver of the immediate climate crisis and the coming sea level crisis, yet current policy prioritises exploitation over protection. This is a strategic failure of historic proportions — and the window to act is closing fast.

The paleo record is unambiguous: at the end of the Younger Dryas, 11,700 years ago, Arctic temperatures leapt 7–10°C over a few decades. Sea levels rose 20 metres in 400 years. Megatsunamis followed the collapse of the Hudson Bay ice dome.  Global climate was transformed within a human lifetime. What is now unfolding is human-driven, faster, and starting from a higher base temperature — with 8 billion people in the path of consequences our ancestors never faced.

Since 1980, the Arctic has warmed at four times the global rate, now tracking at 0.35°C per decade — meaning 2°C globally by 2040 and 4°C by 2100, with 8°C and 16°C respectively in the Arctic. The Greenland Ice Sheet holds enough ice to raise sea levels by at least 7 metres. A partial collapse could begin without warning, triggering megatsunamis and sudden irreversible sea level rise, and promoting the collapse of already-critical Antarctic glaciers. A 2.5 metre sea level rise this century is plausible; a significantly greater rise cannot be ruled out.

Four interlocking tipping processes are accelerating, each capable of passing a point of no return. Glacier discharge is raising sea levels now. Thawing permafrost is releasing methane — far more potent than CO₂ — directly amplifying warming. A narrowing Arctic-to-tropics temperature gradient is destabilising the polar jet stream, locking it into blocking patterns that produce the stuck weather now battering Europe: prolonged droughts, deadly heatwaves, and catastrophic floods. And the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation is weakening — its collapse, now considered possible within decades, would permanently alter European weather and devastate continental economies. These processes cascade. Greenland's partial collapse could directly trigger AMOC failure. Once any tipping point is crossed, reversal is impossible. Inaction is not a neutral choice — it is a choice for irreversible systemic collapse.

Every EU coastal state faces inundation from converging sea level rise, storm surges, and extreme precipitation. Coastal defence infrastructure scaled to 2.5 metres or more of sea level rise would be staggering in cost and ultimately futile.  Cooling through Stratospheric Aerosol Injection would cost a fraction of that — while treating the cause, not the symptom.

Meanwhile, major powers are treating the Arctic meltdown as a commercial opportunity, planning shipping routes and resource extraction.  This is folly.  The EU must fight to protect the Arctic from meltdown.

The EU has the scientific capacity and moral authority to lead global Arctic protection through targeted cooling interventions and binding international protections. The alternative — incremental adaptation to accelerating catastrophe — will cost incomparably more, in money and in lives.

The time for cautious language has passed.  The EU must change its policy towards the Arctic and strongly advocate for emergency deployment of cooling intervention at scale to protect the Arctic from catastrophic meltdown.

The only words I've changed are the ones underlined.  Perhaps it doesn't need restructuring - what do you think?

Cheers, John

[Douglas Grandt]

Topic: John's PRAG zoom Meeting

Monday, March 9
9:00 PM London
5;00 PM (EDT)
4;00 PM (CDT)
3;00 PM (MDT)
2;00 PM (PDT)

Tuesday, March 10
8:00 AM (AEDT)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us05web.zoom.us/j/82944981576?pwd=QVuPR2h3YYZfqxjDiH55NJobbCEaPm.1

Meeting ID: 829 4498 1576
Passcode: 7f9mx9

Join instructions
https://us05web.zoom.us/meetings/82944981576/invitations?signature=PUeoB2xdrSQD2lou3fK40M9zknto_uQimL1beB88AtU

~~~~~~~~~~

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[Paul Klinkman]

Dear Restorers,

In an argumentative essay, always feature the adversary's best argument first, then counter it.  Save your best arguments for last.  

Your adversary's best argument is that sulfur kills asthmatic people and it creates more asthmatic people.  If you ignore this argument, you allow the adversaries to raise this argument unopposed and then neutral people's perception of your integrity will drop because you weren't fair to all of the arguments.

You have counterarguments.  First, you may prefer salt particles that do the same thing without adding a health risk.  Second, to minimize possible deaths you can release the particles in places where almost nobody lives, such as above Antarctica in the austral Spring when the sun most needs to be screened out.  You might want to quantify the additional number of deaths because that number can be near zero.  Similarly, you can only release particles when they're blowing out toward the open ocean, and you'll cease operation whenever the wind forecast isn't correct.  

I happen to have mister buoys that drive the lifetime costs of creating salt particles way down.  See sketches of my various misters at (or above) https://klinkmansolar.com/knightfog.htm#U4d .   Reassurance of low cost is a useful argument.  What will this all cost, versus the good it does?  That question will be important to readers.  

Yours in Hope,

Paul Klinkman

[John Nissen]

Hi Paul,

Health is a reason for reducing SO2 content in fuels, but it does not apply to the proposed SAI, as the SO2 will fall out of the stratosphere close to the pole harmlessly, or practically so.

The most likely reaction of the EU committee looking into Arctic policy is to ignore our submission altogether.  But we might be able to head off some objections:

• PRAG's authority/credibility: this comes from scientist members (particularly Prof Wadhams) having studied the Arctic situation for decades.  Having estimated cooling power requirements, PRAG has developed a plan for planetary restoration within 50 years which necessarily involves SAI and CDR at sufficient scale to refreeze the Arctic, reduce temperatures elsewhere, and lower CO2e to below 380 ppm as necessary to phase out SAI and avoid termination shock.
• Need for emissions reduction: Emissions reduction cannot have a direct cooling effect on any meaningful timescale, but it can reduce the amount of CDR required for planetary restoration.
• Energy security: Protection of the Arctic is more important than obtaining energy from the Arctic; drilling in the Arctic for oil or gas poses a huge risk of spills.
• Effect on the natural environment: The cooling intervention will help to protect the natural environment and traditional livelihoods for the Arctic and European peoples.
• Governance: The EU could become part of the governance structure to ensure proper application of cooling interventions, e.g. to minimise possible side-effects such as ozone depletion.

Cheers, John

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[Douglas Grandt]

John, Herb, Greg and JohnM,

Based on our zoom discussion, I have run the latest version already in Claude (having had your earlier email suggestions incorporated) with new instructions as I reccall.

Attached is a PDF of the output from Claude.

I have made no attempt to trim the character count from the unconstrained 6,946 (including spaces) to the EU Commission maximum 4,000.

That effort can be done manually or using Claude once we have agreed that the attached text addresses the essence of our zoom deliberation.

Cheers,

Doug

[John Nissen]

Hi all,

We had thought-provoking discussions about how best to present the case for the urgent application of SAI to cool the Arctic and about what exactly we should ask the EU Arctic policy committee to do in this emergency.  The draft, as posted yesterday, falls short on both accounts, saying little about SAI and asking little specifically about what the policy committee should do.   We also agreed that the credibility of our submission must be boosted by referring to names.  Here is some text, inspired by the meeting.

Peter Wadhams and John Nissen have been concerned about protecting the Arctic and pointed out the need for direct cooling to a UK government committee in 2012.  The need for cooling has become ever more urgent as the Arctic warming and melting continues unabated and at least four tipping processes could now be approaching a point of no return. The effect of these processes is already being felt: weather extremes are becoming more extreme; permafrost is thawing, the AMOC is slowing, and the Greenland Ice Sheet is showing signs of disintegration, threatening metres of sea level rise.  This is an unprecedented crisis for humanity; the time for cooling action is now.  

A huge amount of cooling power will be needed to bring down the Arctic temperature and defuse the situation by halting and reversing these processes.  Emissions reduction, even with aggressive CO2 drawdown, simply cannot provide the cooling power required.  Fortunately research has been done by Wake Smith and Doug MacMartin that shows that the temperature could be lowered using Stratospheric Aerosol Injection at reasonable cost.  They have established that, with careful management, SAI could be deployed reasonably safely, producing relatively small and manageable side effects. 

The EU committee should approach the EU parliament to make a resolution about protecting the peoples of the Arctic and Europe by cooling the Arctic, with the promotion of SAI and preparation for testing it. Time is running out to defuse the crisis.

Cheers, John

[Douglas Grandt]

John,

Perhaps this type of transmittal letter/note could be submitted within the <4,000 character window … short and poignant … and attach the longer  3-page “paper” (which now stands at 6,946 including spaces) as a PDF file which is subject to a 5MB size limit.

Doug

BTW, Anton Keskinen is now Head of Strategy OA and Ellen Haaslahti is now Executive Director, so I added cc: Ellen 

Sent from my iPhone (audio texting)

On Mar 9, 2026, at 7:45 PM, John Nissen <johnnis...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[John Nissen]

Hi  Doug,

Thanks for the latest Claude output, picking up on some points from the meeting.

I sent you some text about an hour after the meeting ended, to include some important things we needed to include, such as names of people as sources of information and credibility.  I had previously sent some points to be added under various topics, including governance.  

I suggest we get Claude to put everything above together, regardless of length, to produce a comprehensive document with references and calculations, suitable for an EU climate scientist to examine.  This can go on your web site.  Then do another pass to compress the text, suitable for the lay reader, down to 650 words (or whatever gives a total character count under 4000 with spaces).  This can refer to the fuller document on your website.

Please use the text from the top of this thread as a starting point for the additions, since subsequent outputs from Claude have missed things out.

Thanks again.

Cheers, John (leaving home in 15 minutes for the West Country!)

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[Paul Klinkman]

>  "...the SO2 will fall out of the stratosphere close to the pole harmlessly, or practically so. "

I suspect that you have studies showing that climate-driven Arctic jet stream dips will almost never bring SO2 down from the Arctic stratosphere into temperate zones.  Even if the Arctic becomes extra cold from SO2 and equatorial regions become extra hot, this dipping jet stream issue won't tend to happen?  

I'll grant that you might have the goods, but as an outsider I can see how your words sound.  Hand-waving about some real evidence that you claim to possess may not be sufficient to send the SO2 health problem away in the minds of neutral observers.  The world recently removed SO2 from above the Atlantic Ocean for public health reasons, so awareness of SO2 health issues is high.

Yours,

Paul Klinkman

[greenkni...@gmail.com]

It is important to set before decision makers the various options for addressing the climate crisis. These include accelerated replacement of fossil fuels, accelerated replacement of agricultural policies and practices that promote methane, emissions, accelerated greenhouse gas removal, and related methods.

It is also essential that we assess the risks and benefits of various means of solar radiation mitigation. That means not focusing only on stratospheric atmospheric injection, but also on other means of addressing that particular problem.

Thank you very much all here involved in providing this forum for a very helpful discussion.

John Fitzgerald

John M. Fitzgerald

73 Bear Head Rd.

Sedgwick, ME 04676

202-288-0231

On Mar 9, 2026, at 7:32 PM, 'Douglas Grandt' via Healthy Planet Action Coalition (HPAC) <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

John, Herb, Greg and JohnM,

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<EU Arctic Policy Update – Request for Feedback (J. Nissen) CLAUDE 5345 chracters (long AMOC) ZOOM input.pdf>

On Mar 8, 2026, at 8:34 PM, John Nissen <johnnis...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi everyone,

Note that 9 pm UK time is 5 pm EDT and 2 pm PST, as clocks have changed in the US, but not yet in the UK.  It will be 8 am AEDT.  All are welcome.  The main agenda item is approval of text for submission to the EU on behalf of PRAG.  But personal submissions are encouraged.

I am currently trying to restructure our submission to have a paragraph or two on each of the four tipping points.  But this is what Claude has produced so far, working on my original text:

The EU needs a fundamental rethink of its Arctic policy. The Arctic is the primary driver of the immediate climate crisis and the coming sea level crisis, yet current policy prioritises exploitation over protection. This is a strategic failure of historic proportions — and the window to act is closing fast.

The paleo record is unambiguous: at the end of the Younger Dryas, 11,700 years ago, Arctic temperatures leapt 7–10°C over a few decades. Sea levels rose 20 metres in 400 years. Megatsunamis followed the collapse of the Hudson Bay ice dome.  Global climate was transformed within a human lifetime. What is now unfolding is human-driven, faster, and starting from a higher base temperature — with 8 billion people in the path of consequences our ancestors never faced.

Since 1980, the Arctic has warmed at four times the global rate, now tracking at 0.35°C per decade — meaning 2°C globally by 2040 and 4°C by 2100, with 8°C and 16°C respectively in the Arctic. The Greenland Ice Sheet holds enough ice to raise sea levels by at least 7 metres. A partial collapse could begin without warning, triggering megatsunamis and sudden irreversible sea level rise, and promoting the collapse of already-critical Antarctic glaciers. A 2.5 metre sea level rise this century is plausible; a significantly greater rise cannot be ruled out.

Four interlocking tipping processes are accelerating, each capable of passing a point of no return. Glacier discharge is raising sea levels now. Thawing permafrost is releasing methane — far more potent than CO₂ — directly amplifying warming. A narrowing Arctic-to-tropics temperature gradient is destabilising the polar jet stream, locking it into blocking patterns that produce the stuck weather now battering Europe: prolonged droughts, deadly heatwaves, and catastrophic floods. And the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation is weakening — its collapse, now considered possible within decades, would permanently alter European weather and devastate continental economies. These processes cascade. Greenland's partial collapse could directly trigger AMOC failure. Once any tipping point is crossed, reversal is impossible. Inaction is not a neutral choice — it is a choice for irreversible systemic collapse.

Every EU coastal state faces inundation from converging sea level rise, storm surges, and extreme precipitation. Coastal defence infrastructure scaled to 2.5 metres or more of sea level rise would be staggering in cost and ultimately futile.  Cooling through Stratospheric Aerosol Injection would cost a fraction of that — while treating the cause, not the symptom.

Meanwhile, major powers are treating the Arctic meltdown as a commercial opportunity, planning shipping routes and resource extraction.  This is folly.  The EU must fight to protect the Arctic from meltdown.

The EU has the scientific capacity and moral authority to lead global Arctic protection through targeted cooling interventions and binding international protections. The alternative — incremental adaptation to accelerating catastrophe — will cost incomparably more, in money and in lives.

The time for cautious language has passed.  The EU must change its policy towards the Arctic and strongly advocate for emergency deployment of cooling intervention at scale to protect the Arctic from catastrophic meltdown.

The only words I've changed are the ones underlined.  Perhaps it doesn't need restructuring - what do you think?

Cheers, John

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[John Nissen]

Hi Doug,

The most urgent thing is the submission of the under 4000 character letter by the deadline tomorrow (CET).

This is the letter, with my suggested deletions and underlined additions, which I am copying to PRAG members since we will be submitting on their behalf tomorrow.

Dear Members of the Arctic Policy Committee,

We write on behalf of the Planetary Restoration Action Group (PRAG) to submit formal feedback on the EU's pending Arctic policy update.

To the EU Arctic Policy Committee,

From the Planetary Restoration Action Group (PRAG)

Our submission is informed by over a decade of scientific engagement with Arctic climate risk, including testimony presented to the UK environment audit committee by Peter Wadhams and John Nissen as early as 2012.  We believe that the current climate crisis is now largely driven by Arctic meltdown.  Cooling intervention is essential.

Our central message is clear and urgent and unambiguous: the EU's Arctic policy must shift — fundamentally and immediately — from a framework centred on economic exploitation to one centred on halting and reversing Arctic meltdown.  preservation and active restoration of Arctic climate conditions. The scientific case for this reorientation is overwhelming cooling intervention is overwhelming: continued warming would force four tipping processes beyond their point of no return, with catastrophic and irreversible effects on climate and sea level, especially disastrous for the peoples of the Arctic and Western Europe. The window within which it for achieving effective cooling remains achievable is closing.

We urge the Committee Commission to approach the European Parliament for a formal resolution recognising the Arctic climate emergency, to establish a governance framework for Arctic restoration, and to fund a structured international research and testing programme for cooling interventions — with Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI) as the primary candidate — leading to transparent go/no-go deployment decisions about optimal deployment at scale.

Our full submission, enclosed, sets out the scientific basis: the four interlocking  tipping processes with their potentially irreversible effects;now approaching points of no return; the case for SAI; and our specific policy asks in detail. We respectfully urge the Committee to treat this submission as a matter of the highest priority.

Yours faithfully,

John Nissen on behalf of PRAG the Chairman, Planetary Restoration Action Group

On Sat, Mar 14, 2026 at 1:51 AM Douglas Grandt <answer...@mac.com> wrote:

John,   (drafted and sent early this morning, but just now discovered in OUTBOX unsent)

Ready to submit, but the REFERENCES on the final page needs to be competed

References

Kevin Anderson, interviewed by Alma Asfalto, Climate Uncensored, March 2026. https://climateuncensored.com/the-arithmetic-of-climate-failure-an-interview-with-alma-asfalto/

Wake Smith & Douglas MacMartin — Stratospheric Aerosol Injection research (specific papers to be cited by author)

Peter Wadhams & John Nissen — UK Government Committee Submission on Arctic Cooling, 2012 (reference to be confirmed by author)

Doug

On Mar 12, 2026, at 10:05 AM, John Nissen <johnnis...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Doug, 

If within 4000 chars  that looks very good to me

 But I don't think an attachment is allowed, so the long/full version will have to be on your PRAG website with a link given in the short paper in place of "attachment ".

You could circulate fully now

Cheers John from mobile 

On Thu, 12 Mar 2026, 12:21 am Douglas Grandt, <answer...@mac.com> wrote:

John,

I had Claude make appropriate adjustment 

Claude responded: “The key revision is the third paragraph, which now explicitly acknowledges the Committee’s remit boundary, frames the ask as a referral to Parliament rather than a direct request for action, and explains why Parliament is the appropriate body to receive and act on the full paper.

Here’s the revised transmittal letter:

TRANSMITTAL LETTER

To: European Commission Arctic Policy Committee

From: Planetary Restoration Action Group (PRAG)

Re: Feedback Submission — EU Arctic Policy Update

Date: March 2026

Dear Members of the Arctic Policy Committee,

We write on behalf of the Planetary Restoration Action Group (PRAG) to submit formal feedback on the EU’s pending Arctic policy update. Our submission is informed by over a decade of scientific engagement with Arctic climate risk, including testimony presented to a UK government committee by Peter Wadhams and John Nissen as early as 2012.

Our central message is urgent and unambiguous: the EU’s Arctic policy must shift — fundamentally and immediately — from a framework centred on economic exploitation to one centred on the preservation and active restoration of Arctic climate conditions consistent with Holocene norms. The scientific case for this reorientation is overwhelming. The window within which it remains achievable is closing.

We recognise that the full scope of our submission — which advocates emergency cooling intervention, including immediate preparations for Stratospheric Aerosol Injection testing with a view to ramping up deployment to the scale necessary to refreeze the Arctic — may extend beyond this Committee’s immediate remit. We therefore respectfully ask the Committee to refer our enclosed paper to the European Parliament, recommending that Parliament give it serious and urgent consideration.

The basis for that referral is compelling. Without cooling intervention at scale, the four interlocking Arctic tipping processes now underway — Greenland Ice Sheet destabilisation, permafrost methane release, polar jet stream disruption, and AMOC weakening — risk crossing points of no return, making catastrophic climate change and irreversible sea level rise increasingly inevitable. These are consequences that fall squarely within the European Parliament’s responsibility to the peoples of Europe and of the Arctic.

Our full paper, enclosed, sets out the scientific basis, the four tipping processes, the case for SAI as the primary available cooling intervention, and our specific asks in detail. We respectfully urge the Committee to treat this referral as a matter of the highest priority. 

Yours faithfully, 

John Nissen 

Chairman, Planetary Restoration Action Group (PRAG)

Sent from my iPhone (audio texting)

On Mar 11, 2026, at 7:02 PM, John Nissen <johnnis...@gmail.com> wrote:



Thanks Doug, 

We are getting there. It's late here and I have only a few minutes on my mobile.

Greg made a point that the short paper we send to the committee should ask the committee to approach the EU parliament suggesting that they consider the longer report, as it goes beyond their remit in the advocacy of emergency cooling intervention starting with immediate preparations for SAI testing with a view to ramping up deployment to a scale necessary to refreeze the Arctic  given the potential catastrophic climate change and sea level rise that could become inevitable without such deployment.

Cheers John 

On Wed, 11 Mar 2026, 8:26 pm Douglas Grandt, <answer...@mac.com> wrote:

John,

I made only one correction to the Claude output … Claude guessed at PRAG meaning Polar Research and Action Group 🫣

PDF and WORD.docx attached

I leave it to your discretion to distribute to the wider list.

I can make further edits tomorrow night and Friday—Monday

Doug

On Mar 11, 2026, at 3:39 PM, Douglas Grandt <answer...@mac.com> wrote:

John,

Scroll to the last two iterations (here):

1) fully expanded “paper” to be submitted as an attached PDF or Word.docx file 

2) short <4,000 character text transmittal and abstract text

I merely scanned each and am now copying into Apple.Pages in order to get the character accounts and create PDF and Word.docx for your final review and edits

That will take a bit of time … momentarily 

Doug

Sent from my iPhone (audio texting)

On Mar 11, 2026, at 2:59 PM, Douglas Grandt <answer...@mac.com> wrote:

John,

Reprocessing now … I’m away from home visiting friends two hours drive north near the Vermont-Quebec border Thurs-Sun

Spring has finally arrived and the foot- deep snow is rapidly melting day-by-day 

Doug 

Sent from my iPhone (audio texting)

On Mar 10, 2026, at 5:53 AM, John Nissen <johnnis...@gmail.com> wrote:



Hi  Doug,

Thanks for the latest Claude output, picking up on some points from the meeting.

I sent you some text about an hour after the meeting ended, to include some important things we needed to include, such as names of people as sources of information and credibility.  I had previously sent some points to be added under various topics, including governance.  

I suggest we get Claude to put everything above together, regardless of length, to produce a comprehensive document with references and calculations, suitable for an EU climate scientist to examine.  This can go on your web site.  Then do another pass to compress the text, suitable for the lay reader, down to 650 words (or whatever gives a total character count under 4000 with spaces).  This can refer to the fuller document on your website.

Please use the text from the top of this thread as a starting point for the additions, since subsequent outputs from Claude have missed things out.

Thanks again.

Cheers, John (leaving home in 15 minutes for the West Country!)

On Mon, Mar 9, 2026 at 11:32 PM Douglas Grandt <answer...@mac.com> wrote:

John, Herb, Greg and JohnM,

Based on our zoom discussion, I have run the latest version already in Claude (having had your earlier email suggestions incorporated) with new instructions as I reccall.

Attached is a PDF of the output from Claude.

I have made no attempt to trim the character count from the unconstrained 6,946 (including spaces) to the EU Commission maximum 4,000.

That effort can be done manually or using Claude once we have agreed that the attached text addresses the essence of our zoom deliberation.

Cheers,

Doug

On Mar 8, 2026, at 8:34 PM, John Nissen <johnnis...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi everyone,

Note that 9 pm UK time is 5 pm EDT and 2 pm PST, as clocks have changed in the US, but not yet in the UK.  It will be 8 am AEDT.  All are welcome.  The main agenda item is approval of text for submission to the EU on behalf of PRAG.  But personal submissions are encouraged.

I am currently trying to restructure our submission to have a paragraph or two on each of the four tipping points.  But this is what Claude has produced so far, working on my original text:

The EU needs a fundamental rethink of its Arctic policy. The Arctic is the primary driver of the immediate climate crisis and the coming sea level crisis, yet current policy prioritises exploitation over protection. This is a strategic failure of historic proportions — and the window to act is closing fast.

The paleo record is unambiguous: at the end of the Younger Dryas, 11,700 years ago, Arctic temperatures leapt 7–10°C over a few decades. Sea levels rose 20 metres in 400 years. Megatsunamis followed the collapse of the Hudson Bay ice dome.  Global climate was transformed within a human lifetime. What is now unfolding is human-driven, faster, and starting from a higher base temperature — with 8 billion people in the path of consequences our ancestors never faced.

Since 1980, the Arctic has warmed at four times the global rate, now tracking at 0.35°C per decade — meaning 2°C globally by 2040 and 4°C by 2100, with 8°C and 16°C respectively in the Arctic. The Greenland Ice Sheet holds enough ice to raise sea levels by at least 7 metres. A partial collapse could begin without warning, triggering megatsunamis and sudden irreversible sea level rise, and promoting the collapse of already-critical Antarctic glaciers. A 2.5 metre sea level rise this century is plausible; a significantly greater rise cannot be ruled out.

Four interlocking tipping processes are accelerating, each capable of passing a point of no return. Glacier discharge is raising sea levels now. Thawing permafrost is releasing methane — far more potent than CO₂ — directly amplifying warming. A narrowing Arctic-to-tropics temperature gradient is destabilising the polar jet stream, locking it into blocking patterns that produce the stuck weather now battering Europe: prolonged droughts, deadly heatwaves, and catastrophic floods. And the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation is weakening — its collapse, now considered possible within decades, would permanently alter European weather and devastate continental economies. These processes cascade. Greenland's partial collapse could directly trigger AMOC failure. Once any tipping point is crossed, reversal is impossible. Inaction is not a neutral choice — it is a choice for irreversible systemic collapse.

Every EU coastal state faces inundation from converging sea level rise, storm surges, and extreme precipitation. Coastal defence infrastructure scaled to 2.5 metres or more of sea level rise would be staggering in cost and ultimately futile.  Cooling through Stratospheric Aerosol Injection would cost a fraction of that — while treating the cause, not the symptom.

Meanwhile, major powers are treating the Arctic meltdown as a commercial opportunity, planning shipping routes and resource extraction.  This is folly.  The EU must fight to protect the Arctic from meltdown.

The EU has the scientific capacity and moral authority to lead global Arctic protection through targeted cooling interventions and binding international protections. The alternative — incremental adaptation to accelerating catastrophe — will cost incomparably more, in money and in lives.

The time for cautious language has passed.  The EU must change its policy towards the Arctic and strongly advocate for emergency deployment of cooling intervention at scale to protect the Arctic from catastrophic meltdown.

The only words I've changed are the ones underlined.  Perhaps it doesn't need restructuring - what do you think?

Cheers, John

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[John Nissen]

For the full submission, Doug has asked for some references.

Smith, MacMartin, et al.  (IOP, 2022)

A subpolar-focused stratospheric aerosol injection deployment scenario

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2515-7620/ac8cd3/meta

Environmental Audit Committee - Protecting the Arctic - Written Evidence: Contents

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmenvaud/171/171we01.htm

Cheers, John

 

[Douglas Grandt]

John,

The net result of additions and deletions (including the 4 tipping points as we discussed) follows:

To the EU Arctic Policy Committee,

From the Planetary Restoration Action Group (PRAG)

Our submission is informed by over a decade of scientific engagement with Arctic climate risk, including testimony presented to the UK environment audit committee by Peter Wadhams and John Nissen as early as 2012.  We believe that the current climate crisis is now largely driven by Arctic meltdown.  Cooling intervention is essential.

Our central message is clear and urgent: the EU's Arctic policy must shift — fundamentally and immediately — from a framework centred on economic exploitation to one centred on halting and reversing Arctic meltdown. The scientific case for cooling intervention is overwhelming: continued warming would force four tipping processes beyond their point of no return, with catastrophic and irreversible effects on climate and sea level, especially disastrous for the peoples of the Arctic and Western Europe. The window for achieving effective cooling is closing.

We urge the Committee to approach the European Parliament for a formal resolution recognising the Arctic climate emergency, to establish a governance framework for Arctic restoration, and to fund a structured international research and testing programme for cooling interventions — with Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI) as the primary candidate — leading to transparent decisions about optimal deployment.

Our full submission, enclosed, sets out the scientific basis: 

a) the four tipping processes with their potentially irreversible effects: 

1) Greenland Ice Sheet destabilisation

2) permafrost methane release

3) polar jet stream disruption

4) AMOC weakening 

b) the case for SAI; and 

c) our specific policy asks in detail. 

We respectfully urge the Committee to treat this submission as a matter of the highest priority.

Yours faithfully,

John Nissen on behalf of PRAG

The indentation will be more exaggerated when I enter it into the submittal form.

The Abstract will be added to the 6-page in-depth attachment (PDF file … well below the 5 MB limitation)

Cheers,

Doug

Sent from my iPhone (audio texting)

On Mar 15, 2026, at 6:00 PM, John Nissen <johnnis...@gmail.com> wrote:



To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/planetary-restoration/CACS_FxptT%3DWetXtzi38xFBqMH5t9P6UdB%3DFJXKd7%3DtvOPWeOgA%40mail.gmail.com.

[John Nissen]

Hi Doug,

You pointed out that there are now thousands of submissions, almost entirely about oil and gas.  Our submission could prove unique!

The letter of <4000 chars

The words "prime candidate" should be replaced by "primary means".  We will no doubt need more than just SAI, especially for preventing the disintegration of the Greenland Ice Sheet.  Testing of SAI (and any supplementary interventions such as sea ice thickening) can be the start of a ramping up of deployment, to save precious time.  The EU could do some testing by high latitude injection as suggested by Doug MacMartin (in the reference we have in the attachment).

We have space to say a little about the four tipping processes.  We could include our estimate of 2.5m sea level rise being likely this century without immediate cooling intervention, as per my letter to the FT.  And we could mention the likely effect of AMOC collapse (according to Kevin Anderson): 10-15C cooler in winter but hotter in summer.

On politics, we should mention that the present incumbents of highest office in the US and Russia are likely to be against any cooling intervention, because of their determination to exploit the Arctic for its resources and sea routes in the short term, regardless of any future catastrophe from its continued meltdown.  Hence the EU has a huge responsibility for promoting cooling intervention.  Such action has a basis in international law: the protection of its own citizens, even if the science is not proven beyond doubt, see attachment.

We could mention that PRAG has a 50-year plan for planetary restoration which includes: refreezing the Arctic, cooling the rest of the planet to below 0.5C, and removing a trillion or more tons of CO2 from the atmosphere to achieve below 380 ppm CO2e.  Or this could go in the attachment.

The multi-page attachment

The four tipping processes are mentioned in a paper by Will Steffen, reference to be attached. (The title includes "Anthropocene")

The reference to the interview with Kevin Anderson could work against us, since it is focussed on emissions reduction.  However the bit about the effect of AMOC collapse is worth referring to.

We can quote from the UNFCCC charter, section 3, Article 3, concerning the justification for cooling intervention to protect citizens.  

Cheers for now, John, continuing after lunch

[John Nissen]

Hi Doug,

Thanks for your Claude output but it was too long because it included stuff I intended for the multi-page attachment.   I cut down the Claude output until well below 4000 chars, then added a paragraph about PRAG at the beginning.  For the attachment:

• The details I omitted on the 4 tipping points  
• The reference to an interview with Kevin can go in the attachment, with the quote about AMOC collapse effect on Europe.  
• The reference to the UN charter should be added to this attachment. together with the quote.

The letter of just below 4000 chars including spaces (but excluding the To, From and Date) is below and also attached.

To:       The EU Arctic Policy Committee 

From:   The Planetary Restoration Action Group (PRAG) 

Date:    March 2026

The Planetary Restoration Action Group has a 50-year plan for restoring the planet to a safe, sustainable, biodiverse and productive state.  The plan necessarily involves refreezing the Arctic, cooling the rest of the planet, and removing a trillion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere.  

Our submission is informed by over a decade of scientific engagement with Arctic climate risk, including testimony on protecting the Arctic presented to the UK Environment Audit Committee by Peter Wadhams and John Nissen as early as 2012. We believe that the current climate crisis is largely driven by Arctic meltdown.  Cooling intervention is essential and now extremely urgent.

Our central message is clear and urgent: the EU's Arctic policy must shift — fundamentally and immediately — from a framework centred on economic exploitation to one centred on halting and reversing Arctic meltdown. The scientific case for cooling intervention is overwhelming: continued warming would force four tipping processes beyond their point of no return, with catastrophic and irreversible effects on climate and sea level, especially disastrous for the peoples of the Arctic and Western Europe. The window for achieving effective cooling is closing.

The four tipping processes, described in detail in our enclosed paper, are accelerating due to rapid Arctic warming:

1. Greenland Ice Sheet disintegration — its accelerated ice mass loss, compounded by ice mass loss from Antarctica, threatens metres of sea level rise this century.
2. Permafrost thaw — threatens huge heating from methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
3. Polar jet stream disruption — its sticking behaviour threatens Europe with ever more intense droughts, heatwaves and floods.
4. Weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation — a partial collapse threatens Europe with much colder winters but hotter summers.

The primary means of cooling intervention is Stratospheric Aerosol Injection.  Research by Wake Smith and Doug MacMartin has established that SAI is feasible at reasonable cost and with manageable side effects.  They propose high-latitude injection for Arctic cooling — an option the EU could begin testing without delay.  We recognise that SAI alone may not be sufficient for all tipping processes — in particular, halting Greenland Ice Sheet disintegration may require supplementary interventions such as targeted sea ice thickening. Testing of SAI and complementary measures should begin immediately, starting with small-scale deployment and ramping up to full scale, saving precious time.

Note that the present leaders of the United States and Russia are likely to oppose cooling intervention, given their stated determination to exploit the Arctic's resources and newly opened sea routes regardless of the future catastrophe that continued meltdown will bring. This places an unprecedented responsibility on the European Union to champion cooling intervention on behalf of the international community.

That responsibility has a firm basis in international law.  The EU is obliged to act in protection of its own citizens, even where scientific certainty is not yet absolute.

We urge the Committee to approach the European Parliament for a formal resolution recognising the Arctic climate emergency, to establish a governance framework for Arctic restoration, and to fund a structured international research and testing programme for cooling interventions — with SAI as the primary means, supplemented as necessary by additional measures — leading to transparent decisions about optimal deployment at scale.

Our full submission, attached, sets out the scientific basis for our conclusions, with the detailed case for SAI and our specific policy asks.  We respectfully urge the Committee to treat this submission as a matter of the highest priority.

If anyone spots any mistakes, let Doug and me know immediately.  We only have a few hours to the submission deadline: a minute to midnight Belgian time.

Cheers, John

[Douglas Grandt]

John et al,

I will return home in about 30 minutes after completing these errands, and finalize the short text (<4,000) and the long PDF file, melding in the other sections mentioned, plus anything else you may suggest.

Doug

Sent from my iPhone (audio texting)

<EU on Arctic 2026-03-16.docx>

[Douglas Grandt]

John et al,

Attached PDF and WORDldpcx for you final review … note that the edits suggested for the attachment are shown in red highlight including reference numbers.

Please review the red highlights and suggest edits as appropriate. I believe I have captured your intent, but just to be sure...

Doug

[Douglas Grandt]

OOPS … I ATTACHED AN INTERMEDIATE VERSION OF THE CHANGED SHORT SUBMITTAL

DISREGARD PREVIOUS EMAIL 

THE FINAL VERSION OF THE SHORT SUBMITTAL IS ATTACHED BELOW

[John Nissen]

Hi Doug,

I've done the edits, see attached both the letter and the longer supplementary document.  I think they are not perfect but good enough for submission.  You may need to convert to PDF.

Submit as NGO, which PRAG is, I believe!

Cheers, and thanks for your good work,

John

On Mon, Mar 16, 2026 at 8:42 PM Douglas Grandt <answer...@mac.com> wrote:

Got it … will make these edits

Submitting as OTHER … 10-49 size ok?

Any idea what “Transparency register number” is?

Sent from my iPhone (audio texting)

On Mar 16, 2026, at 4:29 PM, John Nissen <johnnis...@gmail.com> wrote:



Hi Doug,

Looking at the multipage document you sent on the evening of 13th March, your time, and the document you sent before the last, I can see a replacement is needed under "The case for SAI":

SAI is not without complexity or risk, which is why a structured, properly funded research and testing programme is urgently needed. However, time is short. It is suggested that SAI is first tested by injection at latitudes proposed by Wake Smith and Doug MacMartin in their paper on refreezing the Arctic [Smith, 2022]. Assuming that is satisfactory, the deployment can be quickly ramped up to the necessary scale to start lowering the Arctic temperature. Other techniques to help with refreezing the Arctic, such as sea ice thickening, should be ramped up at the same time and with the same urgency. International collaboration in the SAI deployment may be essential, but is currently problematic due to the leadership in the US and Russia, where short-term exploitation of the Arctic takes no account of the disastrous consequences of Arctic meltdown in the longer term.

Then there is some confusion about the EU position, so, under "The Policy Imperative", replace the existing paragraph with this:

Meanwhile, several major powers are actively positioning to exploit the Arctic meltdown — planning shipping lanes and resource extraction predicated on continued warming. The EU must find allies for an Arctic intervention strategy commensurate with the crisis originating from Arctic meltdown.  

Then, under "Our ask" there remains a passage including the no-go we discussed.  

Second, establish a formal governance framework for Arctic restoration, providing the institutional architecture within which cooling interventions can be responsibly researched, tested, and deployed at scale.

And the following paragraph contains the "candidate" word, when we need supplementary methods.

Third, initiate and fund a structured international research and testing programme for Arctic cooling interventions, with SAI as the primary means given its cooling power and the existing research by Smith, MacMartin et al. [2]  This programme should run, concurrently with governance development, to optimise deployment of SAI and supplementary approaches transparently, with a view to actionable, scaled deployment.

With these three changes, I think that version of the multi-page supplementary document is OK.  

Your latest email has a version of the multipage which includes an abstract.  This abstract is unnecessary, since it is essentially an abstract of the short letter.

Cheers, John

[John Nissen]

Oops, I sent a version of the letter from 3rd March.  Here are the two correct versions:

[Douglas Grandt]

John et al,

PRAG submittal 

[John Nissen]

entry 1626 on the update page:

https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/16154-EU-Arctic-policy-Update_en

From: John Nissen, on behalf of Planetary Restoration Action Group (PRAG) PRAG has a 50-year plan for restoring the planet to a safe, sustainable, biodiverse and productive state. The plan necessarily involves refreezing the Arctic, cooling the rest of the planet, and removing a trillion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere. Our submission is informed by over a decade of scientific engagement with Arctic climate risk, including testimony on protecting…

Doug has sent our letter and the supplementary 5-pager.  Hooray!

Cheers, John

[Dana Woods]

Testing 

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