Situating and Abandoning Geoengineering: A Typology of Five Responses to Dangerous Climate Change

Abstract

Geoengineering, the “deliberate, large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment in order to counteract anthropogenic climate change” (Shepherd et al. 2009, 1), is attracting increasing interest. As well as the Royal Society, various scientific and government organizations have produced reports on the potential and challenge of geoengineering as a potential strategy, alongside mitigation and adaptation, to avoid the vast human and environmental costs that climate change is thought to bring (Blackstock et al. 2009; GAO 2010; Long et al. 2011; Rickels et al. 2011). “Geoengineering” covers a diverse range of proposals conventionally divided into carbon dioxide removal (CDR) proposals and solar radiation management (SRM) proposals. This article argues that “geoengineering” should not be regarded as a third category of response to climate change, but should be disaggregated. Technically, CDR and SRM are quite different and discussing them together under the rubric of geoengineering can give the impression that all the technologies in the two categories of response always raise similar challenges and political issues when this is not necessarily the case. However, CDR and SRM should not be completely subsumed into the preexisting categories of mitigation and adaptation. Instead, they can be regarded as two parts of a five-part continuum of responses to climate change. To make this case, the first section of this article discusses whether geoengineering is distinctive, and the second situates CDR and SRM in relation to other responses to climate change.

‘Opening up’ geoengineering appraisal: Multi-Criteria Mapping of options for tackling climate change

“…However, these generalised observations were joined by the fact that individual geoengineering proposals bore very little in common with one another and that the carbon-solar dichotomy, as well as the even more aggregated umbrella term 'geoengineering' was unhelpful. Such findings resonate with recent calls to disaggregate the term (Heyward, 2013;Boucher et al, submitted).…”

Like artificial trees? The effect of framing by natural analogy on public perceptions of geoengineering

“…In addition, the very concept of 'geoengineering' has been critically appraised and challenged as a useful category or label (Bellamy et al 2013;Boucher et al 2014;Cairns 2013;Heyward 2013). Some have argued that geoengineering ought not be so strictly distinguished from mitigation and adaptation policies, when in fact there are considerable conceptual overlaps between the three approaches (Boucher et al 2014;Heyward 2013;Markusson et al 2013a).…”

“…Some have argued that geoengineering ought not be so strictly distinguished from mitigation and adaptation policies, when in fact there are considerable conceptual overlaps between the three approaches (Boucher et al 2014;Heyward 2013;Markusson et al 2013a). Cairns (2013) suggested that the term geoengineering is sufficiently ambiguous that it permits different actors to pursue multiple divergent interpretations (Cairns 2013).…”

Geoengineering, Scientific Community, and Policymakers

“…Heyward (2013) discussed this issue and concluded that CDR is a subset of mitigation, but she also argued that, in this stage, its isolation in a separated category has advantages. The first one lies on the fact that this makes CDR methods more prominent.…”

“…Thus, analyzing the current ambiguity among the various concepts and two alternative categorization proposals previously published by Heyward (2013) and Boucher et al (2014), 1 this article presents a new proposal for the categorization of responses to anthropogenic climate change. It aims to simplify and clarify the debate to make science more understandable to politics.…”