EU Scientific Advisors Call for Moratorium on Solar Geoengineering, Aerosol Injection
A scientific advisory board has called on the European Union to halt solar geoengineering technologies while calling for a “global governance system” to tackle the issue.
A group of scientists and policymakers have recommended the European Union support a Europe-wide moratorium on using a controversial geoengineering technique known as solar geoengineering.
The scientists warn that the benefits and risks of solar geoengineering proposals are “highly uncertain”. They state that deploying the technology could impact the climate in different parts of the world and “would be difficult to predict and difficult to manage in practice.”
The group also called for ensuring that any future research on solar geoengineering is “rigorous, ethical and explicit about uncertainties”, and for reassessing the “risks and potential opportunities” every five to ten years.
The recommendations were first detailed in a December 2024 report by the Scientific Advice Mechanism (SAM), an organization which provides “independent scientific evidence” and policy recommendations to the College of European Commissioners. The SAM is made up of three sub organizations, including the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors, seven scientists whose job is to make recommendations to the EU.
Support and opposition to geoengineering technologies have been growing over the last decade as a potential solution for alleged climate related disasters. There are several types of geoengineering, including Solar Radiation Management (SRM) or solar geoengineering. Stratospheric aerosol injection, or SAI, is a specific solar geoengineering practice which involves spraying aerosols into the sky in an attempt to deflect the Sun’s rays.
“For decades, technologies have been proposed that would reduce or counteract global warming by reflecting sunlight away from the Earth. These proposals, known as “solar radiation modification” technologies, include stratospheric aerosol injection, cloud brightening, and others,” the report states.
While the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors note that climate models show potential for fighting “global warming” with geoengineering, they also acknowledge that it could have both intended and unintended impacts.
“They could have negative impacts on ecosystems, change rainfall patterns, and hamper food production,” the scientists wrote. “Any large-scale intervention in our common planetary environment would have systemic consequences.”
Aarti Gupta, a professor of global environmental governance at Wageningen University and part of the team that produced the report which guided the scientists, told The Guardian it was “crucially important” the EU calls for a moratorium on SRM.
“Most crucially, the EU now needs to show global leadership in pushing for an international ‘non-deployment’ regime on SRM,” Gupta stated.
Geoengineering as a Gateway to Global Governance
The Group of Chief Scientific Advisors also controversially called for EU policymakers to “negotiate a global governance system” for future decisions relating to deployment of solar geoengineering. The scientists reiterate that the EU’s position in these global discussions should be “to not deploy the technologies.”
While the group called for ensuring the global system respects “fundamental rights and values” it is highly likely that such a system would lead to further silencing the voices of smaller nations and opponents of geoengineering.
This call for a global governance system echoes past statements made by the Biden White House and the European Commission regarding their desire to promote discussions on a “potential international framework for their governance”.
The European Commission has said attempts to alter the climate with geoengineering pose “unacceptable” risks and called for international talks on the dangers and governance of geoengineering.
“Nobody should be conducting experiments alone with our shared planet,” European Union climate policy chief Frans Timmermans told a news conference. “This should be discussed in the right forum, at the highest international level.”
The European Commission also released a statement which said SRM in its current form “represents an unacceptable level of risk for humans and the environment”.
Joanna Haigh, Emeritus Professor at Imperial College London, told Reuters that international governance models are necessary to deal with geoengineering experiments. “The governance of geoengineering will be hugely complex, but necessary to regulate any future geoengineering technologies that could feasibly lower global average temperatures,” Haigh stated.
One way or another, the geoengineering conversation is being used to promote the idea that there should be an “international framework” or “global governance models” to grapple with the realities of this untested technology.
While it may seem common sense to ask if governments should be cooperating if they are taking such a consequential step, we should also be asking whether or not we can even trust these governments to “play God” by messing with the climate, or whether this should be happening at all.
Since 2017, I have been warning that promotion of the technology known as geoengineering would be a gateway to global governance schemes which are themselves a stepping stone towards a singular, centralized governing body managing individual nations. The pronouncements delivered last week by the US government and the European Union represent one more step in that direction.
While these debates have mostly focused on the thoughts and opinions of government leaders and political pundits, the majority of the world is being left out of these discussions. It is absolutely vital for elected officials to discuss matters of such import, but we cannot allow the politicians alone to dominate the conversation. What of developing countries, indigenous communities, and local populations? Their voices must be heard in order to fully assess the risks of geoengineering.
As resistance to geoengineering and other weather modification techniques reaches a fever pitch, we will see more national leaders and regulatory bodies calling for various global governance schemes as the solution to the problem they themselves had a hand in creating. We should remain skeptical of these calls and all attempts to install world government which has the power to override national sovereignty.
