SAI governance
Beating a dead horse?
This (hopefully) final post on the geoengineering technique of stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) is based in part on the previous ones, together with a selection of papers and reports gleaned from the internet [1] - [9]. The list is not all inclusive but these sources, together with the hundreds of other documents they cite should be sufficient to provide an accurate view of the state of thought on SAI governance.
Let's start by describing the scope and extent of meaningful SAI governance. Characteristics include:
Applicability to both research and deployment phases
Research scope to include resolution of moral hazards and identification of adverse side effects, together with approaches toward their mitigation
Applicability to both governmental and non-governmental actors
Universal applicability
Appropriate monitoring, enforcement and compensation mechanisms in place
It should be obvious that deployment of SAI at scale, even for research purposes, should not be undertaken if it is known to produce serious side effects that cannot be mitigated, or involve an irreconcilable moral hazard. An example of the latter is the use of sulfates in SAI. As argued in [2] and [4]-[7], the temporary reduction of global temperatures thru the use of SAI would encourage continuation of business as usual for the fossil fuel economy. Moreover, since as previously reported [10], some 70% of the world's Sulfur comes from the desulfurization of fossil fuels, continued extraction of fossil fuels would be demanded, because to cut back on fossil fuel extraction while increasing demand for Sulfur to support SAI would introduce severe shortages for other, important uses of the element. Thus, part of the research on SAI with sulfates must identify alternative sources for Sulfur so as to allow curtailment of fossil fuel extraction in parallel with carbon dioxide capture and storage while SAI is being practiced. It is also necessary that participants in the actual deployment of SAI be unequivocally committed to carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) for the duration of SAI at such a level that the atmospheric concentration of CO2 at the end of the SAI intervention is significantly lower than it was at the start. As an aside, it is interesting to contemplate the comparative costs of the alternatives (A), in which phase out of fossil fuels is carried out in conjunction with CCS on a relatively modest scale and (B), in which SAI is implemented, fossil fuel phase out is delayed and CCS is conducted on a scale massive enough to both compensate for the delay in fossil fuel phase out and achieving a net reduction in atmospheric CO2 concentration. When viewed this way, SAI loses its appearance of being a low cost approach, even discounting inflation.
The documents referenced previously, in particular [5] emphasize a need for a code of conduct for governing SAI research. In the academic world, and to some extent in unclassified government-sponsored research, accuracy and transparency are achieved most of the time through the mechanism of peer review for published material. Research that is privately funded, and particularly when performed by for-profit entities, tends to not be published and thereby avoids the natural fact checking and ethical critiques that characterize academic research. Sadly, corporations are increasingly funding academic research, and laying proprietary claim to the results. Governments can be complicit in this, when they grant contractors proprietary rights to work paid for by the tax payers. Thus codes of conduct are becoming ever less effective in the research community.
The need for governance to be applicable to private sector entities is amply illustrated by the example of the firm Making Sunsets which, when denied approval to launch a balloon carrying sulfates into the stratosphere in the US, went to Mexico to carry out their self-described "experiment", which led Mexico to become the first nation on the planet to ban SAI. While the Making Sunsets episode can be most generously characterized [11] as a PR stunt - the amount of material dispensed was short by a factor of at least one million of producing a detectable effect - a program carried out by a clueless or egotistical billionaire could potentially have significant negative impact. This is a difficult issue because agreements among nations generally are among governments, with the regulation of entities within individual signatories left up to the signatories themselves. But what about transnational entities? Who is to regulate them?
Monitoring of the effects and side effects of SAI would require establishing an international, scientific organization with essentially unrestricted access to both geography and data, with a charter broad enough to allow for the investigation of unanticipated side effects, and having the power to trigger regulatory efforts in response to damage caused by SAI. The IPCC provides an example of how the international community can come together to discover and monitor the effects of human and natural activity on the climate and ecosystem, but it is sadly also an example of the weakness, no, powerlessness of such organizations to mandate action.
Regarding enforcement and compensation, most of the discussion seems to center on voluntary measures and lamentations over the absence of international agreements with teeth. Let's use an example: the use of SAI as a weapon. The UN Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques [12] clearly applies, but there are a number of problems with it, most notably that compliance is voluntary, and that its provisions apply only to signatories. Fewer than half the UN members have signed, although in a few instances, for example the Netherlands, applicabilty has been extended to non-parties to the treaty as well. It would be possible in principle to modify the treaty to provide for sanctions against any country violating its provisions, with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as the governing body. The problem with that is that two of the countries most likely to weaponize geoengineering, the US and the Russian Federation, do not recognize the ICJ.
A possible work-around would be for the entities that have the technical and financial resources to develop, build, supply and operate the fleet of heavy lift aircraft necessary to loft ca 10 million metric tons of sulfates into the stratosphere annually for at least several decades engage in a binding treaty incorporating all the applicable features of the various UN conventions. The list, in my estimation, includes but eight entities, which are, in alphabetical order: Brazil, European Union, India, Japan, PRC, Russian Federation, UK and US. [13] While this looks appealing from the point of view of number of parties, it is still problematic for the same reason as the UN-based approach. Part of the reason for the UN's inability to be decisive is its structure, which requires Security Council approval for anything meaningful to happen. As you probably noticed, the Security Council members with the longest histories of vetoing UN resolutions are on the list of eight. More to the point, it will be extremely difficult to negotiate a truly meaningful treaty, involving significant sanctions for violations or damage caused, with such a varied, adversarial group of entities.
In light of the unlikelihood of meaningful international agreements, the best way of preventing SAI from going forward is for citizens to voice their opposition to SAI, and insist that their representatives at the state and national level enact meaningful legislation to outlaw SAI deployment and provide meaningful oversight and regulation of SAI research. Currently it appears that the country most likely to deploy SAI is the United States, because of our staggering wealth and the dominance of so-called "free market" forces in the country. Strict regulation of SAI research, and a prohibition of its implementation without meaningful, science-based vetting, should be part of the Democrats' campaign platform in the upcoming national elections. But it will not be unless citizens speak out. The climate crisis should be viewed as more than just another money making opportunity.
Notes
[1] Victor, D.F., On the regulation of geoengineering, 2008 https://fsi9-prod.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/Regulation_of_Geo-engineering_Victor.pdf
[2] Edenhofer, O. et al., IPCC Expert Meeting on Geoengineering Meeting Report, 2012 https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/05/EM_GeoE_Meeting_Report_final.pdf
[3] Grieger K.D. et al., Emerging risk governance for stratospheric aerosol injection as a climate management technology, 2019 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10669-019-09730-6
[4] MacMartin, D.G. et al., Technical characteristics of a solar geoengineering deployment and implications for governance, 2019 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14693062.2019.1668347
[5] NAS Committee, Reflecting Sunlight: Recommendations for Solar Geoengineering Research and Research Governance, 2021 http://nap.nationalacademies.org/25762
[6] Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative, Evidence Brief: Stratosheric Aerosol Injection and its Governance, 2021 https://www.c2g2.net/wp-content/uploads/SAI-Evidence-Brief.pdf
[7] Tang, A. and L. Kemp, A Fate Worse than Warming? Stratospheric Aerosol Injection and Global Catastrophic Risk, 2021 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fclim.2021.720312/full
[8] Tang, A., Dead before arrival: The governance of stratospheric aerosol injection, 2023 https://thebulletin.org/2023/03/dead-before-arrival-the-governance-of-stratospheric-aerosol-injection/
[9] European Commission, Scoping paper: Solar Radiation Modification, 2023 https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2023-08/Scoping_paper_SRM.pdf
[10] https://stephenschiff.substack.com/p/stratospheric-aerosol-injection-sai-ef4
[11] The words "most generously" are apt because at the time this was written, Making Sunsets was selling "cooling credits", absent any real capacity on their part to affect measurable global cooling and absent any legislation or tax code provisions to offset irresponsible behavior via purchase of indulgences. Who do they think they are? Goldman Sachs?
[12] The treaty is at https://disarmament.unoda.org/enmod/ while the signatories are listed at https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=IND&mtdsg_no=XXVI-1&chapter=26&clang=_en
[13] This list, which I formulated independently, differs from that published in 2008 by Victor [1] in but two respects: I include the UK, which in 2008 was part of the EU, and exclude Australia, which in my estimation lacks the aviation industrial base to produce large numbers of heavy lift, stratosphere- capable aircraft.