5 Items

Heads of State participate in the opening ceremony of the High-Level Event of COP 22, November 15, 2016.

Creative Commons

Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Affairs

Cop22 After Trump

| November 21, 2016

"...[E]ven if the impacts of a Trump slump in U.S. domestic climate action are manageable, the impact on global policy may not be. The concern here is not immediate support for new coal plants or the immediate risk of conflict; it is the way in which a weakening of international institutions might initiate a negative feedback loop played out over many years and decades."

Policy Brief - Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, Belfer Center

Implications of the Paris Agreement for Carbon Dioxide Removal and Solar Geoengineering

| July 2016

The authors explore, in particular, the implications for CO2 removal and solar geoengineering of the Paris Agreement's long-term temperature goals, provision for "removals by sinks," and market-based mitigation mechanisms.

What’s the right temperature for the Earth?

Pixabay

Analysis & Opinions - The Washington Post

What’s the right temperature for the Earth?

| January 29, 2016

Imagine being able to control the temperature of the Earth like a home thermostat, turning it down a few notches to reduce the effects of global warming. That’s the goal of solar geoengineering. By spraying aerosols into the stratosphere, we could block a fraction of inbound sunlight and temporarily cool the Earth.

But just as home thermostats are notorious for setting off domestic squabbles — she bumps it up to 72, he ratchets it down to 64 — solar geoengineering could spark serious conflicts, ranging from sanctions to war between world powers.

As an extremely low-lying country, surrounded by vast oceans, Kiribati is at risk from the negative effects of climate change, such as sea-level rise and storm surges, April 17, 2011.

Erin Magee/DFAT

Analysis & Opinions - The Huffington Post

How Much Attention Does Climate Change Warrant? A Conversation With Climate Scientist and Energy Technology and Public Policy Expert David Keith

    Authors:
  • Melody Guan
  • Yifan Wu
| April 17, 2015

HEA: You have conducted research on whether patents on solar geoengineering technologies could be banned and advocated for keeping these technologies in the public domain. What are the dangers of privatizing solar geoengineering?

Keith: With incredible technologies like this, you could destroy the world. You don't want private enterprise making nuclear weapons, and you don't want that with geoengineering. The decisions could impact the whole world and need to be taken as legitimately and as transparently as possible....

The SPICE project investigates the feasibility of 1 so-called geoengineering technique: releasing small particles into the stratosphere, which then reflect a few % of incoming solar radiation, with the effect of cooling the Earth with relative speed.

Wikimedia CC

Analysis & Opinions - The Washington Post

What's the Right Temperature for the Earth?

| January 29, 2015

"...[A]ttention is turning to solar geoengineering, also known as solar radiation management. Although the concept of injecting sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere has so far been tested only using computer simulations, there's high confidence that it would work to cool the Earth because it would mimic the well-understood cooling effect of large volcanic eruptions."