Arctic Repair 2025

"This is my home, our home. The Arctic is an amazing place that needs a lot of help right now." Those are the words of Brandon Langan, a resident of the high Arctic. Speaking on the first morning of Arctic Repair 2025, he set the scene for a groundbreaking conference on potential solutions for a warming world.

One year ago, on the heels of another disappointing COP meeting, we decided it was time to get some people together to talk about solutions. It was almost ten years since our last conference in Cambridge; within that decade, the Centre for Climate Repair was officially formed, ideas like solar radiation modification and ice thickening had entered mainstream media, and the Arctic had warmed 0.75˚C.

Last month, we finally saw it happen. Arctic Repair 2025 brought together over 160 scientists, community leaders, funders, and journalists to explore the latest research. Held at the University of Cambridge and online, the conference saw discussions on ideas to protect the Arctic and the thinking around ethics, governance, and public perceptions.

"Climate change is a moral crisis," said Faatupu Simeti, speaking in our opening plenary on Thursday morning. Representing Tuvalu’s Department of Climate Change and Disaster, she gave an anecdotal account of the effects of climate change on her country. With a 3D model projection, she explained how sea-level rise could drastically impact the islands and the lives of the people living there. She reminded us that, despite this imminent threat, the Pacific region gets only 0.03% of global climate finance. 

“I hope Tuvalu’s experience, that you have seen,” said Simeti, “highlights the urgent need for ethical governance in climate actions. This includes finance, justice, respect for indigenous knowledge, transparency, and inclusivity.” 

“Respect for indigenous knowledge” and experience set the theme for the morning and underpinned the entire conference. 

Following Simeti’s talk, Julius Mihkkal Eriksen Lindi introduced a Saami perspective. As a member of the Saami Council, which represents many people indigenous to Arctic regions, he shared the work that they are doing to develop conversations on the pressing issues of climate change. Currently, his team are using their knowledge to evaluate interventions and provide invaluable insight into potential paths forward. 

He also warned of possible traps into which climate researchers could fall, such as “green colonialism” and “strategic ignorance”. To prevent this, he said, there must be two-way conversations and respect.

“When addressing one crisis,” he said, “we must not create another. Marginalised communities already face the dual hardships of climate change and green colonialism; geoengineering must not become yet another burden.”

We then heard from Brandon Langan, a resident of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, who has been actively involved in ice thickening research with Real Ice and the Centre for Climate Repair. In conversation with Shaun Fitzgerald, he shared the challenges his community is facing as a result of climate change.

"This is my home, our home; the Arctic is an amazing place that needs a lot of help right now," he said.

To a backdrop of before and after images, he explained how the loss of ice has influenced their homes, caribou movement, and day to day life. His home is one of the places set to be most imminently impacted by climate action – and most at risk with a lack thereof. 

As experts on the area, he and many others have been involved in the research into ideas to minimise the loss of sea ice. "It's been really interesting working on it from start to finish this year," he said.

"I wish they [interventions] weren't needed,” he added, “but with the way the world is right now, I think they may be."

Setting the scene

The previous evening, some of us had met at the Winstanley Theatre in Trinity College. After a chance to get to know each other over drinks, we watched Into the Ice, a documentary film starring Jason Box from the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. The film follows researchers investigating moulins in the Arctic ice.

Box expounded on his findings the following day, but the film set the scene with a moving portrait of the changeability, concerns, and personal cost of climate research and climate change. 

A youth perspective

Our first technological session saw us looking to the skies. Under the umbrella of Marine Cloud Brightening, Michael Herzog and Isabelle Steinke explained cloudy complexities through modelling, and Dan Harrison videoed in from Australia to share real-world trials. His team have spent over a decade working with local communities and First Nation people to learn more about how the technologies could protect the Great Barrier Reef.

A personal highlight for us was the panel of early-career researchers at University of Cambridge and Delft University of Technology. They shared how their collaboration fuels insights on Marine Cloud Brightening possibilities and gave voice to the experience of young researchers in the field. 

A global perspective

On the second morning, speakers shared local and global strategies, impacts, and possibilities for stratospheric aerosol injection.  

With striking data, Peter Irvine compared the impacts of SAI with the impacts of one extra degree of warming (should we continue as we are). With a scenic tour of different regions, from the Arctic to the coral reef, he explained the differing potential for cooling and what a future with SAI could look like.  

Wake Smith zoomed to a global perspective and gave insight into potential deployment strategies. Do we need lots of new technology, or can we use what we already have? 

Trisha Patel, researcher with University of Cape Town, then took us closer to the national level - what are the impacts on cooling and precipitation in South Africa or Tanzania, and how do they differ? She invited us to consider the localised, sector-specific trade-offs of interventions - including benefits and losses for agriculture, health, mining, tourism, and energy.

Alistair Duffey took us back to the Arctic to consider the energy budget under SAI, before Frank Keutsch introduced new research into alternative materials. Finally, Claudia Wieners got us thinking about timing – is it ever too late to cool? Some of her findings were highlighted in this New Scientist article. 

To end the day, Jake Chapman welcomed us to St John's College for a chance to continue conversations over a meal – but it ended up being more than that. 

Anni Pokela, one of the founders of Operaatio Arktis – a youth organisation expanding conversations on climate change – gave a moving speech that captured the personal despair and hope of young people today.  

She acknowledged the burden on our generations not to avoid or ignore the difficulties of climate change, but “to be present in this reality, this moment, to act in it, engage with it. Not reach for the past, not reach for the future, not be desperate, not be hopeful. And, coincidentally, this is exactly the same lens with which we should look at climate interventions.”

She continued: “Since we last really evaluated our climate strategies and our approaches, the reality has changed drastically since then. So our strategies and our approaches have to change with it if we want to respond. And that’s what climate intervention research is about at its best – not just responsibility, but ability to respond.” 

A varied perspective

Despite a packed schedule of speakers, all of our poster presenters got the chance to introduce their research in a Lightning Talk on the main stage. As a result, over the three days we heard of research in a range of areas, from the depths of the ocean to outer space, and from both new researchers and seasoned academics.

"Some ideas will likely be found to be impractical or unacceptable," said Shaun Fitzgerald, one of our hosts. "But others might be shown to be really helpful and stave off the worst effects of climate change whilst we fix the underlying problem of greenhouse gases. This is why we need gatherings to discuss the different concepts."

One of those projects was that of Stuart Haszeldine and David Sevier, who are exploring using ocean current modification to maintain Atlantic Ocean Meridian Current (AMOC) heat balances. Their research, presented at the conference, was featured in the New Scientist.

Likewise, Marta Koch shared on LinkedIn:  

“I had the privilege of presenting my research on the evolving techno-political frameworks for sustainable development monitoring in the Arctic climate extreme environment and how global governance models – especially the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals – are localised and interact with emerging technologies like digitalisation and AI diffusion in climate vulnerable and resource limited settings, challenging the universality of global frameworks and calling for more adaptive, context-sensitive climate tech monitoring and policy implementation.

“Grateful to have had the opportunity to share my work, contribute to this urgent dialogue and connect with the inspiring, interdisciplinary group of researchers and practitioners from around the world who came to the event.”

The conference only ran one presentation at a time. That meant that everyone was in the same room, hearing the same things, learning together – and then continuing the discussions during tea-breaks together. Though we came from different backgrounds, experiences, and specialisms, we were all part of one big conversation.

It also gave us the opportunity to be inspired by the scope of interventions being explored. On our final afternoon, Kasia Warburton introduced early ideas for glacier protection; Andrea Ceccolini (Real Ice ) and Fonger Ypma (Arctic Reflections) reflected on the community involvement that has made their on-the-ice research possible; Jeff Overbeek shared his work on planetary sunshades; and John Moore and Marianne Hagen discussed how they're assessing interventions and their real-life, real people implications.  

“It was encouraging to see that Arctic ice thickening is increasingly recognised as a technique worth serious study,” shared Ypma of Arctic Reflections.

Bringing all of these potential ideas into one room for discussion meant that we were well set up for our final morning together looking to the future. 

An inclusive perspective

What's the future of Arctic repair? We hope it looks something like this. 

Saturday morning's session got us considering the way ahead: how, together, we can move step-by-step to a bolder, brighter future. Clara Botto, Director of Outreach at The Alliance for Just Deliberation on Solar Geoengineering (DSG), shared her experience connecting with communities at the forefront of climate change impacts. She invited us to consider community-led conversations about climate interventions, highlighting how a shared burden of knowledge - nobody facing this alone - helps us find a just path forward. 

Then, we heard from Justus Lehtisaari, from Operaatio Arktis, an organisation led by young people seeking to update climate strategies and the way we talk about them. He summarised his talk like this:

“We need to set safeguarding the frozen Arctic as a top priority in our Arctic and climate policymaking, and see the Arctic as a home to millions of people and diverse nature.

We need to aim high but keep our feet firmly on the ground.

This requires an update on how we perceive climate-related risks.

Our institutions are prepared for linear climate change, but as climate change proceeds, it becomes increasingly likely that we might trigger abrupt and self-feeding collapses, especially in the Arctic.

To make the change happen in how we think about these risks and how we design our Arctic policies, we need to co-create these solutions together at the international, national, and local levels.”

We also grappled with questions of funding.  

“How do you help the world assess 61 vastly different ideas for repairing the Arctic in the face of unabated climate change?” – that was a question asked by Stephen Heal from Climate Intervention Environmental Impact Fund. “Matthew Bell FREcon and I argued for the need for a better 'map' to provide transparency of the nature of risks, the dimensions of impact and for comparable metrics.”

Mark Symes, representing the Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA), emphasised the importance of progressing research in order to have better-informed debates on other aspects, like governance. "Research not only tells us what we don't know," he said, "but it also tells us what we don't know that we don't know."  

Afterwards, Shaun Fitzgerald highlighted some of the early-career research positions at the University of Cambridge being supported by the ARIA funding - getting more people involved in this research is part of a responsible way forward.

Finally, we thought about storytelling. Steve Willis, author of Fairhaven, showed us how fiction helps us grasp potential future realities. He invited us to explore a climate optimism that is not wishful thinking, but made from "persistence, determination, and grit." Phoebe Barnard and John Bowey, filmmakers/researchers on the Climate Repair Cafe series, reiterated the how communication is key to societal stability, while we think about how to stabilise the climate. 

As we start to prepare for Arctic Repair 2027, we want to thank all our attendees for joining the conversation at this first event in 10 years. We hope that being together with people from different areas of research and the world inspired you to keep moving forward with integrity, community, and hope.

We'll leave you with some more of Anni Pokela's words:

“What happens when we allow change? When we dare to stay with the troubling present, with all of our cultural and our societal and our economical crises and contradictions, and we dare to step outside of our hubris and our hopelessness, and try to position ourselves in a new way into this moment.

“I think we might just awaken to the fact that we are intrinsically entangled, not just with technology, but with these ecosystems on the brink of collapse; with glaciers, with ocean currents. We might just awaken to the fact that these are the preconditions to our lives and things that we love. And that we have a responsibility to be active caretakers for them.”