Geoengineering

The notion of geoengineering includes a wide array of technologies centred around reflecting sunlight back into space or removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. All seek to intervene in and alter earth systems on a large scale – a “technofix” to climate change.

The technologies proposed all come with far-reaching and profound social, political, and environmental risks and impacts. The effects would - by nature of the intervention - be transboundary, as well as potentially large-scale, unpredictable and irreversible.

Recent Articles

Who Funds and Who Pays

Study

Private tech money is rapidly accelerating solar geoengineering research. Funding has increased more than tenfold since 2020, largely from the US and UK. Who shapes decisions on these high-risk technologies – investors or democratic debate?

Jared Sanborn, J. P. Sapinski

Africa Is Not a Solar Geoengineering Test Site

Analysis

Outside actors are increasingly looking to test speculative climate fixes such as solar geoengineering in African countries. But this potentially dangerous course of action would divert financing and support from real solutions.

Ban Solar Geoengineering

Background

Countless scientists and experts have warned that solar geoengineering would give emitters an excuse not to end their fossil-fuel addictions and cause far-reaching unintended consequences.

Mohammed Usrof, Disha Ravi, Heleen Bruggink, Erica Njuguna

How Geoengineering Works

Our three explanatory videos describe how geoengineering technologies are supposed to work on land, in the oceans and in the atmosphere, and the risks associated with these large-scale technological approaches.

A technofix for the climate? Marine geoengineering - Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung

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A technofix for the climate? Land-based geoengineering (BECCS) - Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung

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A technofix for the climate? Atmospheric geoengineering (Solar Radiation Management) - Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung

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FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions on 1.5°C and Geoengineering

What's the difference between 1.5°C and 2°C? What are "negative emissions"? What's the problem with geoengineering? Why and how is the Heinrich Böll Foundation working on the topic of geoengineering and the 1.5°C limit? Answers to the most frequently asked questions about the 1,5°C target and the topic of geoengineering.

Hands Off Mother Earth! (HOME) Alliance Against Geoengineering

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New investigations have revealed the extent to which billionaire philanthropists and governments of wealthy countries are driving research into a range of solar geoengineering technologies. Our experts looked specifically at key geoengineering companies and research funds, such as US-Israeli start-up Stardust Solutions, and the UK government's Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA).

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Greta Thunberg, Vandana Shiva, Tom Goldtooth, Naomi Klein, Åsa Larsson Blind, Bill McKibben, Michael Mann, Raymond Pierrehumbert and Jennie Stephens share their perspectives — and their warnings — on the growing issue of solar geoengineering.

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SolarGeoengineering is a dangerous bogus solution to the climate crisis that poses serious risks to the environment and society.

Video Recordings

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Video recording of the online event "Climate Justice Law Session: Geoengineering and the climate crisis - Environmental and human rights risks posed by geoengineering and potential litigation opportunities" on September 14, 2021.

The event was hosted by the Center for International Environmental Law, the Climate Justice Fund and the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung.

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Join CIEL, Heinrich Böll, Oil Change International, and DiCaprio Foundation/OneEarth for three short presentations and a Q&A on three seminal reports on geoengineering.The presenters answered questions following presentations about each of these reports.

Podcast

Tipping Point - a podcast on climate justice in the Anthropocene

In this series of podcasts, we explore pathways for climate justice in the Anthropocene - a geological epoch shaped by humans. We take our listeners on a journey to find out how we can reach the Paris goals.

Tipping Point (1/5): Climate geoengineering – Experimenting with the global thermostat

Podcast-Episode

Can and should the global climate be regulated by technological means, the so called geoengineering? Our host took off to hear from experts what these approaches mean for the planet’s environment and society. Kann und sollte das Weltklima technisch mit so genanntem Geoengineering gesteuert werden?

Geoengineering Worldwide

Geoengineering Map

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This interactive geoengineering map, prepared by ETC Group and the Heinrich Boell Foundation, sheds light on the worldwide state of geoengineering by showing the scope of research and experimentation. There is no complete record of weather and climate control projects so this map is necessarily partial.

Lili Fuhr on Geoengineering

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"Geoengineering should not be on the table for adressing climate change" - input of department head Lili Fuhr on Geoengineering at the Climate Engineering Conference 2017: Critical Global Discussions in Berlin.

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Der Easton-Gletscher verlor innerhalb von 15 Jahren 255 m Länge

Geoengineering is not the only answer

Parties to the CBD need to send a strong message to their climate counterparts to find real solutions that work for ecosystems and people instead of offering quick technofixes.

Lili Fuhr

Die Funktionsweise von Solar Radiation Management

Radical Realism About Climate Change

Last December in Paris, 196 governments agreed on the need to limit global warming to 1.5°C. But political constraints are causing some to advocate solutions that will do more harm than good.

Lili Fuhr

A change of course - How to build a fair future in a 1.5° world

In Paris in 2015 governments agreed to keep global warming to well below 2 degrees. The mainstream pathways pin theirhopes to risky and costly technologies. In this joint publication, together with Friends of the Earth Germany (BUND) and Misereor, we present alternatives that are possible and necessary for a change of course.

Last-ditch climate option or wishful thinking?

This report summarises the key evidence which must be considered about BECCS. It looks at the overwhelmingly destructive impacts of existing large-scale bioenergy production and use and the implications of massively scaling it up, as would be required for a global BECCS programme.

For further information and background on geoengineering and its ecological, economic, social and justice implications please see geoengineeringmonitor.org.

Further Articles

Kugel vor dem Gebäude des Sicherheitsrates der Vereinten Nationen in New York

UN-Science Summit: Countries Call for the Non-Use of Solar Geoengineering

Analysis

Recent developments at the 79th United Nations General Assembly and its accompanying Science Summit signal a growing political momentum toward restricting the development and potential deployment of solar geoengineering technologies.

Heleen Bruggink, Carol Bardi

Aufmacherbild zu Erklärfilm: Ein Technofix für das Klima? Land-basiertes Geoengineering (BECCS)

Delay, Distract and Deceive: BECCS Developments in South America, Africa and Asia

Analysis

Part one of our series analyses the status of BECCS in South America and Africa and shows that BECCS is far from being the silver bullet to climate change that some actors portray it to be.

Coraina de la Plaza, Kwami Kpondzo, Souparna Lahiri

Geoengineering at UNEA-4: Why the SDGs Require a Governance Debate Based on Precaution, Rights and Fairness

Commentary

Setting aside the false promise of geoengineering and focusing on both accelerating the energy transition and truly protecting and restoring our ecosystems so that they can act as carbon sinks, is the safest and surest way to confront the climate crisis.

Lili Fuhr

Geoengineering ist ein gefährlicher Irrweg - Die Erde gefangen im Hohlraum einer Glühbirne

Geoengineering is a dangerous distraction

Analysis

Geoengineering technologies are considered by many to be the most practicable solution to overcome the climate crisis. They are mainly a means to secure the predominant role of fossil fuels in the economy.

Carroll Muffett

Radical Realism for Climate Justice

Dossier

Limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial is feasible. Our Dossier is a civil society response to the challenge of such a limitation that's also paving the way for climate justice. Because it’s is neither ‘naïve’ nor ‘politically unfeasible’, it is radically realistic.

Negative CO2 emissions cannot replace rapid reductions

Conference report

An international conference on negative emissions highlights extent of trade-offs and reinforces urgency of near-term emission reductions. A conference report.

Kate Dooley

Visualisation of the 17 sustainable development goals

Governing the Big Bad Fix? What to do about geoengineering

Geoengineering – large-scale manipulation of the Earth’s natural systems – is increasingly being presented as a strategy to counteract, dilute or delay climate change. Which international legal norms and agreements would contradict the different measures?

Duncan Currie

The geoengineering fallacy

Geoengineering technologies are not yet deployable globally, but support for them is advancing fast, thanks to backing by powerful advocates eager to start experiments. But no silver bullet for climate change exists, and we must not abandon proven methods for the sake of a promise that one will be found.

Barbara Unmüßig

High-Emitting, Oil-Producing Countries Block Progress on Geoengineering Governance at United Nations

Civil society reiterates call for a ban on geoengineering High-Emitting, Oil-Producing Countries Block Progress on Geoengineering Governance at United Nations.

Civil Society Positions and Reports

Who Funds and Who Pays

Study

Jared Sanborn, J. P. Sapinski

Fuel to the Fire

The present report investigates the early, ongoing, and often surprising role of the fossil fuel industry in developing, patenting, and promoting key geoengineering technologies.

Climate change, smoke and mirrors - A civil society briefing on Geoengineering

For the past decade, a small but growing group of governments and scientists, the majority from the most powerful and most climate-polluting countries in the world, has been pushing for political consideration of geoengineering, the deliberate large-scale technological manipulation of the climate.

What is wrong with Solar Radiation Management?

A briefing explaining why Solar Radiation Management (SRM) experiments are a bad idea. SRM describes a set of geoengineering techniques that aim to counter human-made climate change by artificially increasing the reflection of heat from sunlight (solar radiation) back into space.

Geoengineering Briefing: Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment (SCoPEx)

Briefing on the details and possible impacts of the Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment - a planned experiment in a form of geoengineering known as Solar Radiation Management (SRM). SRM aims to block or reflect sunlight before it reaches the earth’s atmosphere.

The Big Bad Fix: The case against geoengineering

Report

The “Big Bad Fix” provides a comprehensive overview of the key actors, technologies and fora relevant in the geoengineering discourse. It opposes geoengineering as a technofix for climate change and as a threat to world peace, democracy and human rights.

Using Data and Technology to Solve Social, Environmental and Political Problems

This essay adopts broader conceptual analysis on technology deployment for social change. It looks at how data-driven technologies are currently deployed to solve problems. And makes a case for why we cannot leave the challenges posed by data-driven technologies to technologists.

Stephanie Hankey, Marek Tuszynski

The risks of large-scale biosequestration in the context of Carbon Dioxide Removal

The Paris Agreement’s target of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees is largely dependent on Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) approaches and climate finance institutions are already supporting such afforestation schemes. The report describes existing trends in the field of large-scale biosequestration and examines the social and ecological impacts of such projects.

Riding the GeoStorm - A briefing from civil society on Geoengineering Governance

The prospect of controlling global temperatures raises serious questions of power and justice: Who gets to control the Earth’s thermostat and adjust the climate for their own interests? Who will make the decision to deploy if such drastic measures are considered technically feasible, and whose interests will be left out?