Owning up to the Anthropocene: Geoengineering and International Law
In the obscure depths of the internet, next to articles about the faked moon landing or Area 51, there is another conspiracy that has been circulating for a while, setting itself apart by virtue of its seemingly scientific foundations: Chemtrails. As the theory goes, the government is using aeroplanes to spray toxic chemicals into the air, blocking out sunlight and thus affecting crop yields, food and energy prices as well as our physical and mental health. While reasonable people would agree that the phenomena described by the conspiracy theorists are simply water condensation trails with hardly any environmental impact at all, that is not to say that the idea of spraying chemical elements into the atmosphere is not currently discussed. However, this debate does not take place in the back rooms of secretly totalitarian governments, but rather among well-founded scientists searching for new approaches to tackle the climate crisis. We are talking about geoengineering.
According to a survey featured in the 2011 article ‘Public understanding of solar radiation management’, about 45% of the participants knew how to define climate engineering.[1] Generally, it is described as the large-scale manipulation of the earth’s climate or environment, used intentionally in order to counteract the negative consequences of anthropogenic global warming, that is the rise in the earth’s temperature caused by human activity on our planet.
There are two types of geoengineering currently explored by scientists: The first, known as Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR), would aim at extracting surplus greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. It is often the less contentious form of geoengineering, as it includes techniques such as farming seaweed in the oceans or tree-planting initiatives. The second type, however, Solar Radiation Management (SRM), is usually the topic that dominates the debate about the question of both the feasibility and the morality of geoengineering. Several potential approaches to SRM have been proposed, and while some of them sound like they were taken directly from a science fiction novel, such as the idea of inserting a giant mirror into space to reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the earth, one method in particular has caught the scientists’ (and seemingly also the conspiracy theorists’) interest: Stratospheric Aerosol Injection. Believed to be the most feasible and also the most cost-effective option, Stratospheric Aerosol Injection would mimic the natural process of large volcano eruptions by inserting sulfates into the atmosphere, which would then limit the amount and the intensity of sunlight reaching the earth’s surface as well as the resulting green house effect.
Today, obviously, large-scale geoengineering to combat climate change still seems like the technology of a rather distant future, and whether this future is dystopian or utopian depends on the potential merits and dangers one ascribes to the concept. Whether one is comfortable with the idea or not, with the 2018 IPCC report warning that only about twelve years remain to limit global warming to 1.5°C and thus avert its most serious consequences, a growing number of scientists and politicians entertain the idea that geoengineering might have to be used as an inevitable last resort option. Yet, strikingly, while researchers already explore the technological possibilities of climate engineering, the topic is largely absent from both public debate and political negotiations at an international level.
However, this lack of debate is dangerous, for geoengineering should in no way be considered a miracle remedy to the climate crisis. Let us take a look at Stratospheric Aerosol Injection as an example: The entire concept is built upon the premise that, while artificially cooling down the planet, one should all the same try to mimic natural processes as closely as possible in order to avoid potential unexpected and undesirable side effects that cannot be accounted for when tested in a model scenario. Still, with sulfate injections scientists worry about ozone depletion and a slowing-down of the hydrological cycle. The last point is especially important to note. Stratospheric Aerosol Injection would most likely reduce the monsoon rainfalls, thus disproportionately affecting regions in the tropics, where droughts caused by geoengineering could seriously affect crop yields and the availability of drinking water.[2] This feeds directly into the already existing inequalities between the Northern and Southern hemisphere, fuelling political tensions both on a regional and on an international scale. Water conflicts in Africa or the Middle East would worsen under these circumstances, and geoengineering itself, a costly investment that would most probably be undertaken by rich and technologically advanced states of the West who ultimately will not experience most of its side effects, would become just another symbol of the inegalitarian and exploitative nature of the international system.
Yet today there is hardly any debate on the issue at an international level, and certainly no adequate agreements exist within the framework of international law that could account for and limit the undesirable ecological and political secondary effects of geoengineering. Such an agreement is crucial, however, as a barrier to protect us against the excesses and dangers of our own technological advancements. That is not to say that international law should ban the research on or the use of geoengineering – quite the contrary. But with today’s lack of rules, any state or even private company with the necessary resources could invest in geoengineering, without having to take into account the potential global impacts of their actions.
Certainly, geoengineering might already be limited by national legislation in some countries. The more difficult question to answer therefore is how this ‘legislation’ should look like on a global scale? Scholars like Edward J. Larson argue that the best way to tackle the issue is not by aiming for an all-encompassing international agreement on geoengineering, a top-down approach as is often chosen when it comes to matters of environmental protection. Instead, he suggests developing the legal framework on a case-by-case basis and bilaterally between the involved states.[3] However, whilst being pragmatic, this bottom-up approach falls short of considering the possible global consequences, as outlined previously in the example of Stratospheric Aerosol Injection. At the same time the benefits of a top-down approach must equally be relativised, since states’ political interests in this matter diverge strongly and it would hence most likely be just as difficult to set up an international agreement governing geoengineering as it is to find common ground when it comes to the reduction of green house gas emissions.
Still, the difficulty of the undertaking should not discourage from leading the debate about possible solutions and thus providing the groundwork for the content that any future agreement in international law should include. One attempt at outlining key points for regulating geoengineering has been made by the Oxford Geoengineering Programme. Their five core principles ask for ‘geoengineering to be regulated as a public good’ (1), ‘public participation in geoengineering decision-making’ (2), ‘disclosure of geoengineering research and open publication of results’ (3), ‘independent assessment of impacts’ (4), and ‘governance before deployment’ (5).
But what would this ‘governance’ involve? If we really strive to minimize the inegalitarian impacts of climate engineering, then the heart of any governance initiative must be normative in nature: It must be made bearing in mind both the people and the livelihoods of people in the regions that will most strongly be affected by the side effects of technological attempts to limit global warming.
The debate on geoengineering is certainly an uncomfortable one to be led. It includes speculations on dystopian scenarios for our planet, but ignoring the possibility of these scenarios will only make us vulnerable to being taken by surprise should geoengineering at some point really have to be considered a last resort option. Discussing climate engineering cannot be a taboo – rather, we must become aware of the fact that anthropogenic global warming is itself a large-scale manipulation of the earth’s climate or environment, the same definition as used previously for geoengineering. Only by realizing and owning up to this fact, by accepting that we are already living in the Anthropocene, we can openly debate whether and to what extent we should consider technological interferences as viable tools to combat climate change.
[1] Cf. MERCER, A. M. et al. ‘Public understanding of solar radiation management’. Environ. Res. Lett. 6 (2011).
[2] Cf. Robock, Alan. ‘Benefits, risks and costs of stratospheric geoengineering’. Geophysical Research Letters 39 (2009).
Cf. Larson, Edward J. ‘The Common Law of Geoengineering: Building an Effective Governance for Stratospheric Injections’. The Indonesian Journal Of International & Comparative Law 2 (2015), p. 351.
[3] Cf. Larson 2015, p. 366.
