Geoengineering gets a road map

We're enthusiastic to see the launch of the Solar Geoengineering Research Governance Platform, a multi-regional initiative helping us move forward on this vital aspect of research.

Co-developed by The Alliance for Just Deliberation on Solar Geoengineering (DSG), Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), American Geophysical Union, and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), this is a great road map for the field. We're particularly pleased that the Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA), who are funding some of our live research projects, will be working closely with them.

Mark Symes, Programme Director at ARIA, shared on LinkedIn:

I’m pleased to support today’s launch of the Solar Geoengineering Research Governance (SGRG) platform - an important and timely development in solar geoengineering governance. Through SGRG, the broader solar geoengineering community will be able to take some vital first steps towards a shared, international framework for undertaking solar geoengineering research responsibly.

As the largest public funder of solar geoengineering research, Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA) strives to ensure our Exploring Climate Cooling programme is governed to the highest standards of transparency and accountability. Over the coming months, we're looking forward to working with the SGRG partners to share what we've learned on our journey and to help build the common infrastructure this field needs.

Meanwhile, Clara Botto has just started her PhD research with us on Participatory Governance. She will be looking at participatory mechanisms and the role they play in the construction of a fair governance framework for solar geoengineering technologies.

In a field that is still largely unregulated and carries not only its own baggage of mistakes in public engagement but also those from other contentious scientific fields, meaningful participation might be not only necessary for research validation but also an opportunity to pursue science and think of global governance in inclusive and decolonial ways.

Ultimately, this research seeks to contribute to the work of those who are trying to understand how public deliberative processes can move from being acceptability-seeking to becoming genuine policy instruments, as we still don’t have the formal infrastructures to do so.