The International Politics of Climate Engineering: A Review and Prospectus for International Relations

The International Politics of Climate Engineering: A Review and Prospectus for International Relations

Proposed large-scale intentional interventions in natural systems in order to counter climate change, typically called "climate engineering" or "geoengineering," stand to dramatically alter the international politics of climate change and potentially much more. There is currently a significant and growing literature on the international politics of climate engineering. However, it has been produced primarily by scholars from outside the discipline of International Relations. We are concerned that International Relations scholars are missing a critical opportunity to offer insights into, and perhaps help shape, the emerging international politics of climate engineering. To that end, the primary goal of this paper is to call the attention of the International Relations community to these developments. Thus, we offer here an overview of the existing literature on the international politics of climate engineering and a preliminary assessment of its strengths and lacunae. We trace several key themes in this corpus, including problem structure, the concern that climate engineering could undermine emissions cuts, the potentially "slippery slope" of research and development, unilateral implementation, interstate conflict, militarization, rising tensions between industrialized and developing countries, and governance challenges and opportunities. The international politics of climate engineering is then considered through the lenses of the leading International Relations theories (Realism, Institutionalism, Liberalism, and Constructivism), exploring both what they have contributed and possible lines of future inquiry. Disciplinary International Relations scholars should have much to say on a number of topics related to climate engineering, including its power and transformational potentials, the possibility of counter-climate engineering, issues of institutional design, international law, and emergent practices. We believe that it is incumbent on the International Relations community, whose defining focus is international relations, to turn its attention to these unprecedented technologies and to the full scope of possible ramifications they might have for the international system.

Over the past few decades, global climate change has evolved from a topic primarily of interest to atmospheric scientists, to a prominent issue in international politics with huge annual intergovernmental conferences, a highly complex array of international institutions, and a vast number of substate, suprastate, and nonstate actors devoted to shaping climate policy. Much of the attention paid to climate change is a function of the immense stakes involved, the scale of future (and increasingly present) risks, the substantial international distributional implications, and the consequences of what has come to be viewed as a divide between the global North and global South. Even as the issue has grown in importance, however, scholars from the discipline of International Relations have arguably paid insufficient attention to climate change as both a product and a driver of international politics.

Today, an emerging set of proposed technologies to reduce climate risks stands to dramatically alter the international politics of climate change. Some of these large-scale interventions in natural systems intended to reduce climate risks, collectively called "climate engineering" or "geoengineering," may be able to break through the collective action problems of greenhouse gas emissions abatement and greatly reduce climate risks at low cost. At the same time, they pose their own environmental and social risks while potentially turning international climate politics "upside down." Tensions brought about by climate engineering could conceivably lead to international conflict and pose a threat to global security. Although there is currently a sizeable and growing literature on the international politics of climate engineering, scholars outside of International Relations have primarily produced it, in many cases outside of traditional academic outlets. Furthermore, it is strongly dominated by the theory (or paradigm) of Institutionalism, yet in our opinion, it should be of interest to a wider range of International Relations researchers, including those who previously have felt little reason to engage with environmental matters.

We are concerned that International Relations scholars are missing a critical opportunity to offer insights into, and perhaps help shape, the emerging international politics of climate engineering. To that end, the primary goal of this paper is to call the attention of the International Relations community to these developments. Thus, we offer here an overview of the existing literature on the international politics of climate engineering, and a preliminary assessment of its strengths and lacunae. This paper identifies what we believe International Relations' leading theoretical traditions could offer to this potentially transformative field and suggests some lines of future inquiry.

Climate Change and Climate Engineering

Anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases cause climate change. These accumulate in the atmosphere and lead to higher temperatures, changed precipitation patterns, rising sea levels, more extreme weather events, and ocean acidification. These, in turn, will have large, mostly negative impacts on humans and the environment. The primary policy response has been efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, often called "mitigation" or "abatement." More recently, adaptation, or measures to reduce the vulnerability of human and natural systems to climate change, has been embraced by international policymakers as a second key response.

These responses so far appear to be inadequate to avoid dangerous climate change, and there are reasons to be pessimistic about future efforts. Given this outlook, a growing number of climate scientists and policy experts are proposing climate engineering as a third major set of responses to climate change. Researchers conventionally divide these technologies into two categories. Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) methods, sometimes called negative emissions technologies, seek to remove this leading greenhouse gas from the atmosphere and store it on millennial time scales underground, in the ocean, or in terrestrial ecosystems. Examples of potential CDR techniques include direct air capture, bio-energy with carbon capture and storage, and ocean fertilization. By contrast, solar radiation management (SRM) techniques involve reflecting a small portion of incoming sunlight away from the Earth, thereby moderating global temperatures. SRM methods include stratospheric aerosol injection, marine cloud brightening, and space reflectors.

Of these proposed climate engineering methods, a few SRM techniques- especially stratospheric aerosol injection-have received much attention due to their apparent highly leveraged ability to reduce climate risks and consequent potential to upend traditional climate politics. Recent modeling indicates that SRM could suppress approximately eighty percent of climate change's expected anomalies in temperature and precipitation at the regional scale. This appears to be achievable rapidly, at low cost, using feasible technology, and requiring minimal resources and territory. That is, current evidence implies that almost any state or even a nonstate actor could theoretically alter the entire planet's climate, perhaps independently of the desires of others. The political implications are potentially enormous.

Some climate engineering methods would entail novel technologies, or novel applications of existing technologies, and may introduce unfamiliar risks. In general, CDR techniques share much in common with existing mitigation approaches such as carbon capture and storage or large-scale reforestation. These would be slow and expensive, and the risks they pose tend to be localized and controllable. SRM methods, on the other hand, would be remarkably fast and inexpensive, and potentially involve risks at the regional or global level. Scientists have identified a number of possible environmental side effects, such as uneven regional compensation of temperature and precipitation, stratospheric ozone depletion, and changes to the diffusivity of incoming light. At sufficient scale, many of these consequences have the potential to impact ecosystems, agriculture, and people. We will consider these and other possible climate engineering risks at greater length in the review section below. In what follows, unless otherwise stated, "climate engineering" refers only to high-leverage proposed SRM methods such as stratospheric aerosol injection and marine cloud brightening, although some aspects of this paper could apply to other proposed methods.

Commentators have also identified several political risks that might accompany the research or use of climate engineering. Some methods are anticipated to be inexpensive enough, in principle, to allow for their proliferation among numerous state and nonstate actors, possibly leading to uncoordinated implementation and disagreements over implementation form, location, timing, and intensity. Research into climate engineering might pose a "slippery slope" that biases future implementation decisions toward the affirmative. Control over technologies in the research or implementation phase raises challenging issues of power, legitimacy, and authority to make decisions. Perhaps most frequently, observers have hypothesized that research or use of climate engineering might unduly reduce the incentive for mitigation (the so-called "moral hazard" concern). Finally, if states or other actors were to implement climate engineering on a large scale under conditions of elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide, then premature sudden termination could lead to rapid-and dangerous-climate change (the "termination" risk).

Many of the scholars who discuss climate engineering have considered possible scenarios under which states or other actors might implement the technology. In one, climate engineering could be developed and used only if mitigation turned out to be inadequate. This variously portrays it as an insurance policy, a last resort, a Plan B, or an emergency response. Such a "backstop" strategy might be the product of advance deliberation, crisis (whether real or perceived) decision-making, or something in between. In a second scenario, climate engineering would be deployed as a complement to mitigation and adaptation in order to slow the rate of climate change, to gain additional time to more effectively mitigate, and/or to "shave the peak" off of damages until atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases could be lowered. In a third scenario, climate engineering would be deployed on a regional scale, for example, to cool the Arctic to preserve or rebuild sea ice, or to cool tropical cyclone basins to reduce their storm potential. Of course, these three general scenarios are neither exhaustive nor mutually exclusive.

Interest in climate engineering has been increasing rapidly. There are now hundreds of academic publications on the topic, encompassing both natural and social sciences. The rate of publication has been growing rapidly, with the vast majority of articles appearing since twenty ten. We identified approximately fifty published articles, chapters, white papers, and reports that significantly consider the international political dimensions of climate engineering. Yet most of these contributions are either anchored in scholarly disciplines outside of international relations and/or appeared in the gray literature. In fact, we are aware of only about a dozen works on the global politics of climate engineering published in academic journals or edited volumes that were authored by international relations scholars. Of these, only three (by our count) appeared in English-language international relations journals.