Solar Geoengineering Reduces Atmospheric Carbon Burden

Summary

Solar geoengineering is no substitute for cutting emissions, but could nevertheless help reduce the atmospheric carbon burden. In the extreme, if solar geoengineering were used to hold radiative forcing constant under RCP8.5, the carbon burden may be reduced by ∼100 GTC, equivalent to 12–26 percent of twenty-first-century emissions at a cost of under US$0.5 per tCO2.