Geoengineering the Climate: Science, Governance and Uncertainty

The Royal Society has recently published a report on geoengineering - deliberately manipulating the climate. Their survey of the techniques and possibilities is useful and clear, and explores some of the complexities of policy in this area. The issues of moral hazard - whether researching geoengineering is actually dangerous because it distracts from emissions reduction - of side effects - whether these can be predicted, or calculated, and whether they are likely to be worse under a geoengineering scenario than a non-geoengineering scenario - and governance - the possibility of unilateral climate manipulation and the problems of multilateral climate management - are all touched upon. Geoengineering is…