WHO IS RESEARCHING WHAT AND HOW?

GEOENGINEERING RESEARCH GOVERNANCE PROJECT (GRGP)

The University of Oxford has joined forces with the University of Calgary and the IASS Potsdam for a geo-engineering project: they all agree that something needs to be done to meet the 2°C target of the Paris Climate Convention – but they wish to avoid being too rash and rapid about it. That’s why the joint project’s participants want to explore in more detail the actual opportunities offered, and the actual risks entailed, by geo-engineering. Above all, they’re looking into the question of which political and legal changes would be necessary to introduce and implement geo-engineering.

SOLAR GEOENGINEERING RESEARCH PROGRAM

The American Ivy League university Harvard has established its own geo-engineering programme. It focuses on a specific sub-field of geo-engineering known as solar radiation management (SRM). The latter encompasses technologies that aim to cool our planet by making it possible either to reflect a small amount of sunlight back into outer space or to increase the amount of solar radiation that escapes back there. Harvard scientists are conducting research into such technologies, while also engaging with the work of their fellow scientists from other institutions with a view to possibly taking it a step further. Regular discussions and collaborative efforts with politicians, environmental experts and other scientists on the subject of geo-engineering also belong to the programme.

KIEL EARTH INSTITUTE

Commissioned by the German Ministry of Education and Research, the Kiel Earth Institute conducted a major study titled “Large-Scale Intentional Interventions into the Climate System? Assessing the Climate Engineering Debate”. The project brought together six teams from a wide range of scientific disciplines to conduct joint research into the various possibilities and technologies of climate engineering – from reflectors in outer space to the installation of artificial trees to bind CO₂ from the air. In addition, they engaged both with the costs associated with these technologies and with public perceptions of climate engineering.

IMPLICC

IMPLICC stands for “Implications and Risks of Novel Options to Limit Climate Change”. This involved the researchers’ focussing on the potential effects of different methods of climate engineering and their attempts to simulate the individual methods. For example, one of the investigated methods involved sulphur being injected into the stratosphere. However, the scientists didn’t carry out all of the experiments in real life, but rather simulated them using models and a supercomputer. The project was carried out under the auspices of the European Union.