The Oxford Principles

Rayner, Steve; Heyward, Clare; Kruger, Tim; Pidgeon, Nicholas Frank; Redgwell, Catherine; Savulescu, Julian

doi:10.1007/s10584-012-0675-2

Cited by 245 publications

(127 citation statements)

References 21 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

118

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Transboundary effects and geopolitical relations were seen to be key points of contestation. Existing geoengineering governance projects such as the SRMGI (SRMGI, 2011) and the Oxford Principles (Rayner et al, 2013) were said to be 'pushing in the right direction' (D).…”

Section: Governance On a Case-by-case Basismentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Bellamy

Chilvers

Vaughan

et al. 2013

Global Environmental Change

105

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Concerted efforts have begun to appraise deliberate, large-scale interventions in the Earth's climate system known as 'geoengineering' in order to provide critical decision support to policy makers around the world. To date geoengineering appraisals have employed narrowly framed inputs (such as context, options, methods and criteria) and 'closed' output reflexivity often amounting to unitary and prescriptive policy recommendations. For the first time, in this paper we begin to address these limitations by 'opening up' appraisal inputs and outputs to a wider diversity of framings, knowledges and future pathways. We use a Multi-Criteria Mapping methodology to appraise carbon and solar geoengineering proposals alongside a range of other options for responding to climate change with a small but diverse group of specialists and stakeholders. Overall option rankings are found to vary considerably between participant perspectives and criteria. Despite these differences, the ranks of geoengineering proposals are most often lower than options for mitigating climate change (including voluntary behaviour change and low carbon technologies). The performance of all options is beset by uncertainty, albeit to differing degrees, and it can often be seen that better performing options are outperformed under their pessimistic scores by poorer performing options under their optimistic scores. Several findings contrast with those of other published appraisals. In particular, where stratospheric aerosol injection has previously outperformed other geoengineering options, when assessed against a broader diversity of criteria (spanning all the identified criteria groups) and other options for responding to climate change it performs relatively poorly. We end by briefly exploring the implications of our analysis for geoengineering technologies, their governance, and appraisal.

show abstract

Section: Governance On a Case-by-case Basismentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Bellamy

Chilvers

Vaughan

et al. 2013

Global Environmental Change

105

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Applying the 'modulating scheme' to handle niche building means to stick to the current development paths of societies, thus keeping the production systems and consumption patterns unchanged and the bulk of the accumulated economic, social, and cultural value not depreciated [2,29,[117][118][119][120].…”

Section: Scheme: 'Modulating'mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, the protagonists of each concept argue what is ethically (philosophically) 'right'; for example, see the 'Ecomodernist Manifesto' [73] in support of the 'decoupling narrative' or the 'Oxford Principles' [120] in support of the 'modulating narrative' (geoengineering), notwithstanding the mainstream political advocacy for a mix of the 'adjusting narrative' and 'dovetailing narrative'. These ethical discourses go beyond argumentation of the protagonists of what seems to them sound engineering, economic feasibility, and acknowledged social complexity.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Ideal-Type Narratives for Engineering a Human Niche

Böhle

2017

Geosciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract:Humans have built an anthropocentric biogeosphere; called: 'human niche'. Global change is part of this historical process of niche construction, which implies the intersection of the biogeosphere and the sphere of human activities of social, economic, cultural, and political natures. To construct these intersections, modern-day societies deploy 'engineered systems' and build narratives to frame these activities with purpose. This essay describes: (i) perceptions of what 'engineered systems' are about, (ii) their context such as global change, human agency, and societal implications of applied geosciences, and (iii) related narratives on how to handle global change through the design of 'engineered systems'. Subsequently, regarding underpinning insights, it is shown that they: (i) are well-known, were used in the past, and now may be applied to handle global change; (ii) enshrine a distinct choice on how human activities and the biogeosphere shall intersect; and (iii) can be described by a simple ideal-type scheme, which does not require detailed scientific-technical understanding. Subsequently, it is illustrated how this ideal-type scheme leads to different narratives about what kind of 'engineered systems' are preferred. It is concluded that such ideal-type narratives for a messy world may help a lay-public to choose between options regarding how to handle global change.

show abstract

“…The attendees produced a set of five recommendations for reducing risk and improving transparency in research and small-scale field testing, although this was not restricted to SRM tests [70]. The five principles were strongly based on the Oxford Principles, developed previously by a number of UK-based academics for the UK House of Commons 2010 report [71]. While no mandatory or enforceable strictures were derived (this was not the conference's intent), Asilomar 2010 was a visible effort to assess and bridge technical risks and societal issues and to ascertain the shape and scope of future governance [70,72,73].…”

Section: The Emerging Case Of Solar Radiation Management Field Test Gmentioning

confidence: 99%

Asilomar moments: formative framings in recombinant DNA and solar climate engineering research

Schäfer

Low

2014

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We examine the claim that in governance for solar climate engineering research, and especially field tests, there is no need for external governance beyond existing mechanisms such as peer review and environmental impact assessments that aim to assess technically defined risks to the physical environment. By drawing on the historical debate on recombinant DNA research, we show that defining risks is not a technical question but a complex process of narrative formation. Governance emerges from within, and as a response to, narratives of what is at stake in a debate. In applying this finding to the case of climate engineering, we find that the emerging narrative differs starkly from the narrative that gave meaning to rDNA technology during its formative period, with important implications for governance. While the narrative of rDNA technology was closed down to narrowly focus on technical risks, that of climate engineering continues to open up and includes social, political and ethical issues. This suggests that, in order to be legitimate, governance must take into account this broad perception of what constitutes the relevant issues and risks of climate engineering, requiring governance that goes beyond existing mechanisms that focus on technical risks. Even small-scale field tests with negligible impacts on the physical environment warrant additional governance as they raise broader concerns that go beyond the immediate impacts of individual experiments.

show abstract

The Oxford Principles

Cited by 245 publications

References 21 publications

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

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

Ideal-Type Narratives for Engineering a Human Niche

Asilomar moments: formative framings in recombinant DNA and solar climate engineering research

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About