Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

An emerging set of proposed technologies to reduce risks from climate change stands to dramatically alter the international politics of climate change and potentially much more. These large-scale intentional interventions in natural systems, typically called ‘climate engineering’ or ‘geoengineering’, may be able to break through the collective action problem of greenhouse gas emissions cuts and greatly reduce climate risks rapidly and at low cost. At the same time, they pose their own environmental and social risks while potentially turning international climate politics ‘upside down’. Tensions brought about by climate engineering could conceivably lead to international conflict and pose a threat …

The widespread concern that research into and potential implementation of climate engineering would reduce mitigation and adaptation is critically examined. First, empirical evidence of such moral hazard or risk compensation in general is inconclusive, and the empirical evidence to date in the case of climate engineering indicates that the reverse may occur. Second, basic economics of substitutes shows that reducing mitigation in response to climate engineering implementation could provide net benefits to humans and the environment, and that climate engineering might theoretically increase mitigation through strong income effects. Third, existing policies strive to promote other technologies and measures, including climate …

Proposals for climate engineering—intentional large-scale interventions in climate systems—are increasingly under consideration as potential additional responses to climate change, yet they pose risks of their own. Existing international regulation of large-scale field testing and deployment is considered inadequate. This article looks to the closest existing analogy—nuclear power—for lessons, and concludes that climate engineering research will most likely be promoted and will not be the subject of a binding multilateral agreement in the near future. Instead, climate engineering and its research will probably be internationally regulated gradually, with an initially low degree of legalisation, and through a plurality of means and …