Solar geoengineering could start soon if it starts small Keith and Smith 2024 (1 emails 10/1/2024 to 10/1/2024)
PRAG
Solar geoengineering could start soon if it starts small Keith and Smith 2024Oct 1 2024 3:29PM - Ron Baiman
Dear Colleagues,
Came across this reference this reference:
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/02/05/1087587/solar-geoengineering-could-start-soon-if-it-starts-small/
on the second page Smith's 2024 paper outlining a two decade development plan for polar SAI: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2515-7620/ad4f5c
to a 2024 article that Keith and Smith wrote that appears to fully support the polar SAI proposal floated in the "Challenges and Opportunities" section of the: HPAC UNDCC paper: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Yly53ZRikqrwvDNzu9KNelbNeNQW7sKB/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=116465941111195452408&rtpof=true&sd=true
Note in particular at the end of the article:
"
The deployers could decide that a subscale project might make bigger interventions possible. While scientists may be comfortable drawing inferences about solar geoengineering from tiny experiments and models, politicians and the public may be very cautious about atmospheric interventions that can alter the climate system and affect all the creatures that dwell within it. A subscale deployment that encountered no major surprises could go a long way toward reducing extreme concerns about full-scale deployment.
The deployers could also claim some limited benefit from the subscale deployment itself. While the effects would be too small to be readily evident on the ground, the methods used to attribute extreme weather events to climate change could substantiate claims of small reductions in the severity of such events.
They might also argue that the deployment is simply restoring atmospheric protection that was recently lost. The reduction in sulfur emissions from ships is now saving lives by creating cleaner air, but it is also accelerating warming by thinning the reflective veil that such pollution created. The subscale scenario we sketched out would restore almost half of that sunshade protection
without the countervailing air pollution.
The deployers might also convince themselves that their action was consistent with international law because they could perform deployment entirely within their domestic airspace and because the effects, while global, would not produce “significant transboundary harm,” the relevant threshold under customary international law.
The governance implications of such a subscale deployment would depend on the political circumstances. If it were done by a major power without meaningful attempts at multilateral engagement, one would expect dramatic backlash. On the other hand, were deployment undertaken by a coalition that included highly climate-vulnerable states and that invited other states to join the coalition and develop a shared governance architecture, many states might be publicly critical but privately pleased that geoengineering reduced climate risks.
SAI is sometimes described as an imaginary sociotechnical scenario residing in a distant sci-fi future. But it is technically feasible to start subscale deployments of the kind we describe here in five years. A state or coalition of states that wished to meaningfully test both the science and politics of deployment may consider such subscale or demonstration deployments as climate risks become more salient.
"
This is all phrased in third person hypothetical as they carefully stress that they have not transgressed the accepted "Overton Window" and themselves strayed into advocating DCC deployment (as HPAC has) in the final paragraph of the essay:
"We are not advocating for such action—in fact, we reiterate our support for a moratorium against deployment until the science is critically assessed and some governance architecture is widely agreed upon. Yet a sound understanding of the interlinked technology and politics of SAI is hampered by the perception that it must start with a significant effort that would substantially slow or even reverse warming. The example we’ve outlined here illustrates that the infrastructural barriers to deployment are more easily overcome than is commonly assumed. Policymakers must take this into account—and soon—as they consider how to develop solar geoengineering in the public interest and what guardrails should be put in place."
All in all I think a very helpful to the HPAC DCC mission and also very revealing of the state of current DCC politics among some of our closest allies!
Best,
Ron
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Healthy Planet Action Coalition
Addressing the Urgent Need for Direct Climate Cooling: Rationale and Options
An Open Letter to the IMO Supporting Maritime Transport that Cools the Atmosphere While Preserving Air Quality Benefits
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