Abstract
ABSTRACTDiscourse analyses and expert interviews about climate engineering (CE) report high levels of reflectivity about the technologies’ risks and challenges, implying that CE experts are unlikely to display moral hazard behaviour, i.e. a reduced focus on mitigation. This has, however, not been empirically tested. Within CE experts we distinguish between experts for radiation management (RM) and for carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and analyse whether RM and CDR experts display moral hazard behaviour. For RM experts, we furthermore look at whether they agree to laboratory and field research, and how they perceive the risks and benefits of one specific RM method, Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI). Analyzing experts’ preferences for climate-policy options, we do not find a reduction of the mitigation budget, i.e. moral hazard, for RM or CDR experts compared to climate-change experts who are neither experts for RM nor for CDR. In particular, the budget shares earmarked for RM are low. The perceptions of risks and benefits of SAI are similar for RM and climate-change experts. Despite the difference in knowledge and expertise, experts and laypersons share an understanding of the benefits, while their perceptions of the risks differ: experts perceive the risks to be larger.Key policy insightsExperts surveyed all prioritize mitigation over carbon dioxide removal and in particular radiation management.In the views of the experts, SAI is not a viable climate policy option within the next 25 years, and potentially beyond, as global field-testing (which would be a precondition for long-term deployment) is widely rejected.In the case of SAI, greater knowledge leads to increased awareness of the uncertainty and complexity involved. Policy-makers need to be aware of this relationship and the potential misconceptions among laypersons with limited knowledge, and should follow the guidelines about communicating risks and uncertainties of CE that experts have been advised to follow.
Highlights
The scientific discourse on climate engineering (CE) technologies is very careful to avoid framing the issue in a way that suggests that radiation management (RM) or carbon dioxide removal (CDR) could be a substitute for mitigation (Anshelm & Hansson, 2015)
We have compared CE experts, notably RM experts, with climate change experts, who are not experts on CE, and laypersons to analyse whether RM and CDR experts are more willing to accept or more optimistic about RM or CDR respectively, whether their expertise prompts them to focus less on mitigation, and whether their perceptions are prone to biases similar to those entertained by laypersons
We find no indication that, in comparison with other experts, RM experts are more liable to cut down on the mitigation budget, i.e. moral hazard
Summary
The scientific discourse on climate engineering (CE) technologies is very careful to avoid framing the issue in a way that suggests that radiation management (RM) or carbon dioxide removal (CDR) could be a substitute for mitigation (Anshelm & Hansson, 2015). In this regard, studies on expert opinions (Bellamy, Chilvers, Vaughan, & Lenton, 2013; Bellamy & Healey, 2018; Himmelsbach, 2017; Mercer, 2014; Winickoff, Flegal, & Asrat, 2015) have found that stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), which comes under the heading of RM, is perceived as the most problematic technology, while CDR approaches are evaluated more positively. The scientific discourse on climate engineering (CE) technologies is very careful to avoid framing the issue in a way that suggests that radiation management (RM) or carbon dioxide removal (CDR) could be a substitute for mitigation (Anshelm & Hansson, 2015).1 In this regard, studies on expert opinions (Bellamy, Chilvers, Vaughan, & Lenton, 2013; Bellamy & Healey, 2018; Himmelsbach, 2017; Mercer, 2014; Winickoff, Flegal, & Asrat, 2015) have found that stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), which comes under the heading of RM, is perceived as the most problematic technology, while CDR approaches are evaluated more positively. Our analysis is the first to discuss whether CE experts themselves display moral-hazard behaviour, and the degree to which experts support field experiments on SAI It analyses the way they perceive the risks and benefits of one specific SRM method, SAI. This enables us to assess expert perceptions more broadly than would be the case with only a small number of experts
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