With the UNEP Emissions Gap Report warning that we are heading for 2.9C above pre-industrial levels, we may need to deploy targeted climate engineering technologies as a “last resort” to avoid the worst excesses of the climate crisis. However, much work remains to be done to create a governance framework that will ensure the benefits and risks are fairly distributed across the globe.

—

We know how to solve the climate crisis; we “simply” stop burning fossil fuels. Unfortunately, as the recent UN Climate Change Global Stocktake confirms, to meet the 2015 Paris Agreement we need to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 43% in the next six years, a course of action we appear reluctant and unable to take in such a short time. This begs the question of what other courses of action might be at our disposal when (not if) global temperatures are significantly higher than today. Despite the urgency of the situation, geoengineering, the deliberate intervention in the Earth’s natural systems to counteract climate change remains highly controversial. 

While the subject is understandably contentious, there is a growing body of evidence which demonstrates that climate engineering can be highly effective in reducing global temperatures over relatively short timescales. In this article, I explore both sides of the climate engineering divide, and argue that targeted climate engineering should be developed as a matter of urgency as an option of last resort.

Let’s start with a recap of the two main approaches. 

The first is greenhouse gas removal, which uses biological and chemical processes to extract carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. This can be achieved through tree planting, burying charred biomass – so-called biochar – to lock the carbon into the soil, direct air capture using giant air scrubbers followed by ‘sequestering’ the CO2 underground, enhanced weathering of ground up rocks, or by adding nutrients to oceans to increase primary production leading to a drawdown of carbon from the atmosphere. 

The second approach is solar radiation management (SRM), which reduces the rate at which the Earth absorbs energy from the sun. Most development is focused on increasing the planet’s “albedo” to reflect more solar radiation back into space by either releasing reflective particles into the upper atmosphere, mimicking the stratospheric sulphur aerosols often emitted during volcanic eruptions, or by marine cloud brightening, which sprays sea-water into the air to seed low-altitude stratocumulus clouds and increase their brightness.

Two positions currently dominate the current conversation. On one side, many scientists have called for a moratorium on geoengineering as, they argue, its use would only encourage fossil fuel companies to extract more hydrocarbons, thus continuing emissions of greenhouse gases. SRM might also lead to ”termination shock” whereby, should emissions continue to increase while engineering is used, stopping use of the technology would cause even greater disruption to the climate than if the engineering had not been deployed. An “opposing” stance is taken by the fossil fuel industry which continues to vociferously promote Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). 

This, they contend, would render fossil fuels effectively carbon neutral, and, if sequestration rates were high enough, could start to address historical emissions. Tellingly perhaps, the fossil fuel industry does not publicly call for SRM, as it might too clearly give the impression that further extraction is their primary goal.

The two sides of the argument are far from being diametrically opposed, with each often at cross purposes to the other. While most agree that carbon capture could play a key role used in conjunction with a phase-out of fossil fuels, proponents of CCS usually fail to point out that total current CCS capacity represents only 0.1% of global CO2 emissions and will be almost impossible to scale up sufficiently in any reasonable time. The technology is limited by high processing costs which exceed $600 per tonne CO2 captured, compared with the market price of carbon which remains too low to stimulate the adoption of new processes such as CCS.

On the other hand, those wanting a moratorium on the use of climate engineering techniques take their position because there are good reasons to believe that many SRM techniques are highly effective. We have direct evidence, for example, that volcanic emissions of sulphur aerosols have reduced historical global temperatures to levels below what they would have been, and that we can mimic this effect with aerosol injections into the stratosphere. The academic community is highly engaged with modelling the impacts of SRM, the results suggesting that a significant reduction in future global temperatures could be achieved.

At the very least, the state of the current debate highlights the lack of a high-level strategy, one that considers all the available options, together with an assessment of their impacts including social and political dimensions. In The Art of War, and here I’m thinking about the climate crisis on a war footing, Sun Tzu says of strategies, “In battle there are not more than two methods of attack – the direct and the indirect; yet these two in combination gives rise to an unending series of manoeuvres.” By focusing solely on emissions reduction (direct attack), I believe that we are overlooking important approaches that could, if needed, provide emergency manoeuvres. In the light of the recent Stocktake, we have few options left given the diminishing time before our global carbon budget is completely spent.

You might also like: What Can We Expect From COP28, And What Must Happen?

It cannot be denied, however, that SRM poses significant global governance issues. Given the uncertainties that remain about the global distribution of the potential cooling and associated changes in rainfall, how would we even design, plan and implement these types of intervention in a globally just manner? In the words of Janoz Pastor, Executive Director of the Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative, “Who assesses the balance of risks and rewards when deploying geoengineering technologies? …If we start deliberately altering global temperatures, who controls the global thermostat?”

The deployment of SRM is no longer a theoretical issue. In 2022, a US startup intentionally released two balloons from Baja California each of which dispersed a few grams of sulphur dioxide particles into the atmosphere. While the amounts were miniscule, this created sufficient concern within the Mexican government for them to issue a statement reiterating their “commitment to the protection and well-being of the population from practices that generate risks to human and environmental security.” While the release was more provocative than impactful, it highlights the rapidly changing attitudes to geoengineering and the lack of formal international agreements. Organisations such as SilverLining and the Climate Overshoot Commission are therefore calling for the acceleration of SRM research to build a consensus about which approaches should be considered and the development of effective governance.

It’s not as if safeguards do not already exist to frame the development of climate interventions. The UN convention on Biological Diversity, for example, states that “no climate-related geo-engineering activities that may affect biodiversity take place, until there is an adequate scientific basis on which to justify such activities and appropriate consideration of the associated risks for the environment.” 

What is frustrating is that this convention is not invoked to prevent the greenhouse gas emissions which already threaten the Earth’s biodiversity. While rightly cautious, we appear to have an innate bias against intentional environmental interventions, despite our concern about the unintended consequences of burning fossil fuels. Geoengineering therefore presents us with a fundamental moral question of whether it is preferable to risk doing harm in attempting to do good than to allow continuing harm through inaction.
Fortunately, into this debate comes a new approach, one which may allay some concerns about direct climate interventions. This is the use of targeted climate engineering, which addresses climate breakdown at the regional level with particular focus on the cryosphere (sea ice, permafrost, and ice sheets).

Potential solutions being considered range from the use of glass beads to increase the reflectiveness of Arctic ice to the introduction of large herbivores to reduce foliage and trample the snow and cool the permafrost; a pilot scheme in East Siberia has already been fenced and stocked with bison, musk ox, reindeer and much of the taiga removed. Marine cloud brightening can also be deployed using a semi-targeted approach. Not only does this method use “innocuous aerosols […] salty droplets extracted from the ocean and sprayed into the air by autonomous sailboats.” Any perceived risks are tempered by the fact that, until the recent reduction of sulphur in bunker shipping fuels, maritime traffic was already seeding cloud formation along shipping lanes – as can be seen in the image below.

To conclude, I believe that we have arrived at such a critical juncture in the climate crisis that we should “leave no stone unturned” in the development of effective multimodal responses. With the UNEP Emissions Gap Report warning that we are heading for 2.9C above pre-industrial levels, we urgently need to widen the spectrum of remedial actions to include climate engineering; to be deployed alongside, not in place of, the rapid phase-out of fossil fuels. To do this we will need to be highly creative in developing new engineering manoeuvres, scientifically rigorous to assess the myriad of impacts, and socially just to ensure we distribute the benefits and risks fairly across the globe. But more than anything, we will need to be courageous by being fully cognisant, intentional, and responsible for our collective actions.

You might also like: Deep Is the Irony of Petrostate UAE Hosting COP28

The post Op-Ed: Time to Consider ‘Last Resort’ Targeted Climate Interventions at COP28 appeared first on Earth.Org.

“At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed,” said Frederick Douglass.

—

On November 30, 2023, Dr. Sultan bin Ahmed Al Jaber, the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), will formally open the 28th Conference of the Parties at Expo City in Dubai. As COP28 president, he will make the keynote address welcoming thousands of climate delegates from around the world. Continuing a trend seen in previous conferences, the audience will likely include hundreds of fossil fuel lobbyists whose aim it will be to thwart the best efforts of academics and politicians who are attempting to build consensus and avoid the worst excesses of the rapidly unfolding climate catastrophe.

The irony of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) hosting COP28 is fuelled by the fact that 2023 included the three hottest months ever recorded, with global-mean air temperatures exceeding pre-industrial levels by more than 1.5C, the target agreed in the Paris Agreement in 2015. 

Stark warnings emerge from the scientific community almost weekly. A recent paper published in Nature Climate Change, for example, concluded that: “The opportunity to preserve the West Antarctic Ice Sheet in its present-day state has probably passed, and policymakers should be prepared for several metres of sea-level rise over the coming centuries.” 

Worse, 2024 is predicted to be hotter still due to the return of El Niño, the cyclic warming of the equatorial Pacific ocean which historically has added around 0.2C to global average temperatures. What timing, then, that a country whose economy is heavily dependent on fossil fuel extraction should be hosting COP28 at the pivotal moment for the Earth’s climatic future.

You might also like: What Can We Expect From COP28, And What Must Happen?

Checking my literary guides, I find that the irony is more nuanced and revealing than it initially appears; thanks to the complexities of human communication, irony comes in several satisfying flavours. 

First, one might accept the comic irony of the situation (a state of affairs contrary to expectations and which is wryly amusing). Indeed as Professor Lydia Amir notes in her re-evaluation of philosophy’s attitude towards the comic, there is “epistemological value in laughter, as laughter helps us grasp the truth”. So yes, feel free to see the funny side of a major oil company chairing COP28 a mere decade or two away from climate catastrophe, as in the humour lies deep insight into the situation’s inherent absurdity.

No doubt the conference will generate a great deal of verbal irony (when a person says one thing but means the opposite). When fossil fuel lobbyists say that there is no alternative to extracting more oil and gas due to the increasing demand for energy, they know only too well that the International Energy Agency (IEA) has already concluded that “the shift to a clean energy economy is picking up pace, with a peak in global oil demand in sight before the end of this decade as electric vehicles, energy efficiency and other technologies advance”. When any fossil delegate raises the issue of fuel security, they will already appreciate that, in the face of the Russia-Ukraine war and the instabilities in the Middle East, many industrial nations are already promoting renewable energy specifically to address security of supply.

However, COP28 will not be situationally ironic (when the opposite of what is expected happens). We can be confident that the final pronouncements will attempt to water down all references to fossil fuels as the leading cause of anthropogenic climate change. That the extraction and burning of fossil fuels is the problem has been known since the late 1970s when “ExxonMobil predicted global warming correctly and skillfully…” with their predictions being “…accurate in predicting subsequent global warming.” Despite the glaring scientific reality, the final COP26 and COP27 communiqués only mentioned a single fossil fuel by name, and only once, the texts agreed to “accelerating efforts towards the phasedown of unabated coal power and phase-out of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies,” with words like “unabated” and “inefficient” providing almost unlimited wiggle room for push back by the fossil fuel sector.

You might also like: Did COP27 Succeed or Fail?

Nor will COP28 exhibit Socratic irony (when a character’s feigned ignorance enables the truth to be revealed). Those actors wanting to slow down real action will, no doubt, keep the focus of the discussion on emissions rather than fossil fuel extraction; an attempt at misdirection that does little to develop radical solutions that will rapidly decarbonising global energy chains, or a deeper understanding of the challenges posed by a global energy transition. Obfuscation and delay is the only ambition here, one that is naked and for all to see.

And when the fossil fuel protagonists advocate the use of carbon capture and storage (CCS), they will be fully cognisant that the total storage capacity of existing plants has remained stagnant since 2020 at about 40 million tonnes, an underwhelming contribution to reducing carbon emissions, and representing only 0.1% of global CO2 emissions of 36.8 billion tonnes in 2022. Even the industry’s CCS stretch target of 400 million tonnes by 2030 wouldn’t touch the sides of the scale of the climate challenge.

I would argue that COP28 will possess a degree of dramatic irony (when the audience knows something that characters do not). In understanding the motivations of the actors (delegates), we, the global audience, fully appreciate the positions taken by the various factions, and the climate scientists will be quick to stress-test the adopted policies to model their impacts on the future climate. There couldn’t be a more transparent process or arena, nor could the outcomes be more public or scrutinised. Odd then to observe the behaviour of lobbyists, many of whom appear to believe that their ‘discreet’ soliciting goes unnoticed. Here perhaps lies a central dramatic theme, as much tragic as ironic; that those wanting to undermine the conference really do believe that a future which permits the burning of fossil fuels remains a possibility, when all the analysis unambiguously shows that we need to make drastic reductions in fossil fuel use, not by 2050 or 2030, but now.

The final irony is that it is actually in the interests of Big Oil to rapidly construct an exit strategy before the impacts of abrupt climate change force the hands of governments around the world to rescind extraction licences and ration fossil fuel demand. As noted by IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol: “Oil producers need to pay careful attention to the gathering pace of change and calibrate their investment decisions to ensure an orderly transition.” The risks of inaction are immense but not incalculable; research collated by the London School of Economics suggests that to deliver the Paris Agreement will necessitate the stranding of $1.4 trillion of fossil fuel assets, leaving 60% of oil and gas reserves and 90% of known coal reserves in the ground.

Given the inevitability of climate change, oil companies like ADNOC need to rapidly transition themselves away from their current product lines and invest in new opportunities while they still can. They are not the first sector to be in this predicament and could learn from the experience of the automotive sector which has been through a tumultuous decade of regulation and electrification. Auto-giant Volkswagen, for example, had to fight for its survival following the “dieselgate” emissions scandal that engulfed the company in 2016, severely damaging their reputation, and costing at least $30 billions in regulatory fines.

However improbable, let’s imagine for a moment the final communiqué from COP28 in which ADNOC and the other fossil companies attending agree to engage fully in a rapid transition away from fossil fuels, with the aim of being fully renewable by 2030. To achieve this, they acknowledge, will require them to learn from the experience of other sectors by implementing three key actions: (i) To embrace and adopt new technology at pace and at scale (renewables), (ii) to shift their policy agenda and work with regulators to become advocates for change, and (iii) to overhaul the sector’s culture, widening their objective beyond the short-term profit motive. 

Now that, and I say this without any trace of irony, would be a COP to remember.

Featured image: Wikimedia Commons.

You might also like: Chevron to Buy Rival Hess for $53b in Second Big Oil Mega-Deal in Weeks as IEA Says Demand Will Peak By 2030

The post Op-Ed: Deep Is the Irony of Petrostate UAE Hosting COP28 appeared first on Earth.Org.