Geoengineering: Who Should Control Our Atmosphere?

According to the latest IPCC Assessment Report, we’re currently on course for at least 3°C (5.4°F) of warming by 2100 even if all of the voluntary Paris Agreement emissions pledges are fulfilled. Clearly the world needs to do more to reduce emissions. But what if that’s still not enough?

Solar geoengineering – such as putting sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere to reduce the amount of the sun’s heat from reaching the earth – could be one tool to slow warming temporarily. But it has become so politically fraught that even research into the subject is contentious. Who decides who should control our atmosphere? And what global governance structures should be put in place before any experimentation begins?

This program is generously underwritten in part by the Laney and Pasha Thornton Foundation.

For transcripts and other information, visit: https://www.climateone.org/watch-and-listen/podcasts

Guests:

Janos Pasztor, Executive Director, Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative, former Assistant Secretary General, United Nations 

Sheila Jasanoff, Professor of science and technology studies, Harvard Kennedy School

Albert Lin, Professor, University of California Davis School of Law 

David Keith, Professor of applied physics and public policy, Harvard

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