Europe’s first scientific advice on solar geoengineering calls on Brussels to push for a global governance regime, leaving room for some regulated outdoor research
The European Union should “proactively negotiate” for a global regime that governs controversial technologies designed to cool the planet – and push to prevent their deployment, its scientific advisors have said.
The recommendations from the EU’s Scientific Advice Mechanism mark the first time the union has received such advice on a highly divisive group of technologies known as “Solar Radiation Management” (SRM).
SRM technologies are designed to temporary relieve the world from extreme heat by blocking some of the sun’s warming impacts. This could include pumping aerosols into the high atmosphere, spraying saltwater into clouds to brighten them, or even sending mirrors into orbit to reflect more sunlight away from the Earth.
These technologies wouldn’t address the root cause of climate change – namely rising heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions – nor could they address the impacts of those emissions on ocean acidification for example.
“At best, they would reduce warming from solar radiation on a temporary and local scale,” the scientific opinion notes.
Risky strategy
It’s a risky strategy. SRM carries major uncertainties and wide-ranging risks, that are poorly understood.
Deployment is “likely to bring substantial negative ecological and economic effects, including changing patterns of rainfall, impacts on ecosystems, a decrease in the security of food production and in the potential of solar energy,” the report warns.
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The EU doesn’t have an official position on SRM although it “does not consider [it] as a solution”, according to a policy scoping paper, which describes the deployment of these technologies as “an unacceptable risk for humans and the environment”.
Last year, the EU’s then Green Deal chief Frans Timmermans requested advice from the union’s seven scientific advisors to help define a common position.
In response, the advisors urged the EU to prioritise reducing greenhouse gas emissions and focus on adaptation to climate impacts as the main solutions to global warming.
The uncertainties associated with deploying SRM are inconsistent with Europe’s precautionary and “do no harm” principles and decision-makers should agree an EU-wide moratorium, they concluded.
At the same time, SRM is gaining more attention as a potential cheap and fast solution to reduce overheating as the world barrels towards overshooting the 1.5C warming threshold above which scientists have warned of catastrophic climate change.
“Cooling credits”, which at least one company using SRM technology is already selling at small-scale, should be banned from being used to meet international climate obligations, the advisors added.
Creating rules
Despite the potentially dangerous impacts of deploying SRM at large-scale, there is no international framework governing these activities.
A de facto moratorium was agreed in 2010 by members of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, with exceptions for small-scale scientific research studies – but the decision isn’t legally binding and the United States is not party to the treaty.
The EU should take a leading role in negotiating a global governance system and push for the “non-deployment of SRM in the foreseeable future”, with exemptions for “limited outdoor research” that meet a set of conditions and risk considerations, the advisors argue.
Besides a ban on large-scale outdoor experiments, they recommend the creation of “clear ethical requirements” and guidelines for smaller research projects. Any public funding for SRM research should not replace financing for research on climate action, and scientific evidence for using the technology should be reassessed every five to 10 years, they added.
The EU Commission has previously expressed support for discussions on a global governance framework, including for research. But recent attempts to find a global consensus on how to regulate SRM activities have failed.
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Hibaa Ismael, a lead negotiator for the African Group at the UN Environment Assembly, told Climate Home that the EU should “uphold its opposition to solar radiation management” and “collaborate with African and Pacific governments to champion a global non-use agreement, ensuring that this risky and uncertain technology is neither developed nor deployed”.
For Janos Pasztor, a veteran climate scientists and diplomat who has long argued for an SRM governance mechanism, the advice could put “oil on the wheels” to get the issue considered within the UN system.
The alternative is letting the nascent industry mark its own homework, he told Climate Home, citing his recent experience as a consultant for US-Israeli startup Stardust Solutions, which is developing its own code of conduct for launching reflective particles into the stratosphere.
“Governance is needed whether you want to you to make use of SRM or have a framework to ensure that you stop the kind of activities that we have seen, or provide a framework within which [companies] can operate properly and safely,” he said.
But allowing outdoor research and testing of SRM technologies is highly contested, even at small-scale.
Proponents of research like Matthias Honegger, of the Brussels-based think-tank Centre for Future Generations, argue publicly-funded research is necessary to inform discussions and allow governments to make informed decisions on the potential use of SRM.
“If the EU doesn’t research it, there’s a real risk of not being ready to actually shape the global conversation,” he said, welcoming the advice.
Slippery slope
But critics argue that allowing outdoor testing provides “a slippery slope” that risks normalising the technology towards future deployment.
Aarti Gupta, a professor at Wageningen University, is a member of the expert group which reviewed evidence on which the advice was made and the co-initiator of an academic initiative calling for the non-use of solar geoengineering, which has been signed by more than 500 scientists.
She described the recommendations as going in the right direction but cautioned about allowing outdoor research, even with strong guardrails.
“There’s no amount of small-scale research or anything that will tell us what we actually want to know on the consequences of using SRM at planetary scale for sustained periods of time,” she told Climate Home.
“Aligned with these recommendations, the EU should now take the lead globally to initiate an international norm shift towards non-use. We should not be talking about SRM as an option. It’s too risky to keep it on the table.”
(Reporting by Chloé Farand; editing Joe Lo)
