Geoengineering Technologies explained

The notion of geoengineering includes a wide array of technologies centred around reflecting sunlight back into space or removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. All seek to intervene in and alter earth systems on a large scale – a “technofix” to climate change.

The technologies proposed all come with far-reaching and profound social, political, and environmental risks and impacts. The effects would - by nature of the intervention - be transboundary, as well as potentially large-scale, unpredictable and irreversible.

Nairobi, Kenya - UNEA-4: Civil society reiterates call for a ban on geoengineering

Civil society reiterates call for a ban on geoengineering High-Emitting, Oil-Producing Countries Block Progress on Geoengineering Governance at United Nations.

FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions on 1.5°C and Geoengineering

What's the difference between 1.5°C and 2°C? What are "negative emissions"? What's the problem with geoengineering? Why and how is the Heinrich Böll Foundation working on the topic of geoengineering and the 1.5°C limit? Answers to the most frequently asked questions about the 1,5°C target and the topic of geoengineering.

Webinar

Join CIEL, Heinrich Böll, Oil Change International, and DiCaprio Foundation/OneEarth for three short presentations and a Q&A on three seminal reports on geoengineering.The presenters answered questions following presentations about each of these reports.

Our recent work on Geoengineering

Manipulating Mother Nature: The gendered antagonism of geoengineering

Background

Mother Nature is once again the subject of the male gaze but this time the impact may be even more oppressive. This article expands the feminist concept of ‘male gaze’ towards nature and critiques geoengineering as being an inherently male/masculine technology that is a product of and a means to further capitalistic agenda.

By Mavra Bari

Who Benefits from False Climate Solutions?

By distracting from real imperatives, unfeasible solutions to climate change, such as geoengineering, allow the climate crisis to continue to escalate, disproportionately affecting those who have contributed the least to the problem. The truth is that no technological silver bullet can save us from ourselves. By Karin Nansen on Project Syndicate

A Geoengineering Trojan Horse

For fossil-fuel companies, the promise of geoengineering is the ideal excuse to continue with business as usual. Rather than allow the industry to continue to act in its own interest, the world must establish a strong, democratic regulatory mechanism, which includes the option to ban certain technologies outright. By Silvia Ribeiro on Project Syndicate

Geoengineering at UNEA-4: Why the SDGs Require a Governance Debate Based on Precaution, Rights and Fairness

Commentary

Setting aside the false promise of geoengineering and focusing on both accelerating the energy transition and truly protecting and restoring our ecosystems so that they can act as carbon sinks, is the safest and surest way to confront the climate crisis.

By Lili Fuhr

Geoengineering ist ein gefährlicher Irrweg - Die Erde gefangen im Hohlraum einer Glühbirne

Geoengineering is a dangerous distraction

Analysis

Geoengineering technologies are considered by many to be the most practicable solution to overcome the climate crisis. They are mainly a means to secure the predominant role of fossil fuels in the economy.

By Carroll Muffett

Fuel to the Fire

The present report investigates the early, ongoing, and often surprising role of the fossil fuel industry in developing, patenting, and promoting key geoengineering technologies.

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Radical Realism for Climate Justice

Dossier

Limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial is feasible. Our Dossier is a civil society response to the challenge of such a limitation that's also paving the way for climate justice. Because it’s is neither ‘naïve’ nor ‘politically unfeasible’, it is radically realistic.

The Big Bad Fix: The case against geoengineering

Report

The “Big Bad Fix” provides a comprehensive overview of the key actors, technologies and fora relevant in the geoengineering discourse. It opposes geoengineering as a technofix for climate change and as a threat to world peace, democracy and human rights.

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Negative CO2 emissions cannot replace rapid reductions

Conference report

An international conference on negative emissions highlights extent of trade-offs and reinforces urgency of near-term emission reductions. A conference report.

By Kate Dooley

Visualisation of the 17 sustainable development goals

Governing the Big Bad Fix? What to do about geoengineering

Geoengineering – large-scale manipulation of the Earth’s natural systems – is increasingly being presented as a strategy to counteract, dilute or delay climate change. Which international legal norms and agreements would contradict the different measures?

By Duncan Currie

The geoengineering fallacy

Geoengineering technologies are not yet deployable globally, but support for them is advancing fast, thanks to backing by powerful advocates eager to start experiments. But no silver bullet for climate change exists, and we must not abandon proven methods for the sake of a promise that one will be found.

By Barbara Unmüßig

Civil society positions and reports

Geoengineering Briefing: Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment (SCoPEx)

Briefing on the details and possible impacts of the Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment - a planned experiment in a form of geoengineering known as Solar Radiation Management (SRM). SRM aims to block or reflect sunlight before it reaches the earth’s atmosphere.

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The risks of large-scale biosequestration in the context of Carbon Dioxide Removal

The Paris Agreement’s target of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees is largely dependent on Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) approaches and climate finance institutions are already supporting such afforestation schemes. The report describes existing trends in the field of large-scale biosequestration and examines the social and ecological impacts of such projects.

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Using Data and Technology to Solve Social, Environmental and Political Problems

This essay adopts broader conceptual analysis on technology deployment for social change. It looks at how data-driven technologies are currently deployed to solve problems. And makes a case for why we cannot leave the challenges posed by data-driven technologies to technologists.

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What is wrong with Solar Radiation Management?

A briefing explaining why Solar Radiation Management (SRM) experiments are a bad idea. SRM describes a set of geoengineering techniques that aim to counter human-made climate change by artificially increasing the reflection of heat from sunlight (solar radiation) back into space.

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Climate change, smoke and mirrors - A civil society briefing on Geoengineering

For the past decade, a small but growing group of governments and scientists, the majority from the most powerful and most climate-polluting countries in the world, has been pushing for political consideration of geoengineering, the deliberate large-scale technological manipulation of the climate.

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Riding the GeoStorm - A briefing from civil society on Geoengineering Governance

The prospect of controlling global temperatures raises serious questions of power and justice: Who gets to control the Earth’s thermostat and adjust the climate for their own interests? Who will make the decision to deploy if such drastic measures are considered technically feasible, and whose interests will be left out?

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Factsheets on Geoengineering

Geoengineering worldwide

Click here to see the full geoengineering map

This interactive geoengineering map, prepared by ETC Group and the Heinrich Boell Foundation, sheds light on the worldwide state of geoengineering by showing the scope of research and experimentation. There is no complete record of weather and climate control projects so this map is necessarily partial.

Die Funktionsweise von Solar Radiation Management

Radical Realism About Climate Change

Last December in Paris, 196 governments agreed on the need to limit global warming to 1.5°C. But political constraints are causing some to advocate solutions that will do more harm than good.

By Lili Fuhr

Der Easton-Gletscher verlor innerhalb von 15 Jahren 255 m Länge

Geoengineering is not the only answer

Parties to the CBD need to send a strong message to their climate counterparts to find real solutions that work for ecosystems and people instead of offering quick technofixes.

By Lili Fuhr

Last-ditch climate option or wishful thinking?

This report summarises the key evidence which must be considered about BECCS. It looks at the overwhelmingly destructive impacts of existing large-scale bioenergy production and use and the implications of massively scaling it up, as would be required for a global BECCS programme.

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A change of course - How to build a fair future in a 1.5° world

In Paris in 2015 governments agreed to keep global warming to well below 2 degrees. The mainstream pathways pin theirhopes to risky and costly technologies. In this joint publication, together with Friends of the Earth Germany (BUND) and Misereor, we present alternatives that are possible and necessary for a change of course.

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For further information and background on geoengineering and its ecological, economic, social and justice implications please see geoengineeringmonitor.org.

Videos & Podcasts

Lili Fuhr on geoengineering

"Geoengineering should not be on the table for adressing climate change" - input of department head Lili Fuhr on Geoengineering at the Climate Engineering Conference 2017: Critical Global Discussions in Berlin.

Podcast on geoengineering

Can and should the global climate be regulated by technological means, the so called geoengineering? In our first episode of our podcast "Tipping point" our host took off to hear from experts what these approaches mean for the planet’s environment and society.

Read the text version here

For your further reading

Tipping Point - a podcast on climate justice in the Anthropocene

In this series of podcasts, we explore pathways for climate justice in the Anthropocene - a geological epoch shaped by humans. We take our listeners on a journey to find out how we can reach the Paris goals.

Biodiversity

Dossier

Synthetic Biology describes a set of new genetic techniques for designing and engineering lifeforms for industrial purposes. So far, there is neither a public debate worth mentioning nor any regulation by law. Our dossier looks at the risks Synthetic Biology poses for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.

COP22: Marrakech

The UN climate summit in Marrakech from 7th to 18th November is the crucial next step for operationalizing the Paris Agreement. Many controversial issues are on the agenda such as damages caused by climate change and financing for the poorest countries.

Inside the Green Economy

The economic and ecological bases of a general prosperity are in danger. The Green Economy offers a model, based primarily on large-scale technological innovation. A solution if it results in even more consumption?

New Economy of Nature

How did forests become ‚natural capital‘? Our web dossier illustrates what the concept of the „New Economy of Nature“ stands for and explains nature’s role in the Green Economy and why this approach has been of increased interest to economy and politics recently.

COP21: Paris

After the failed climate summit in Copenhagen 2009, governments of 196 countries meet again at COP 21 in Paris at the end of November to negotiate a globally binding climate agreement. In this ongoing dossier we pick up these and other aspects and complement them with regional analyses from our international offices.