Environmental Geopolitics of Climate Engineering Proposals in the IPCC 5th Assessment Report

Shannon O'Lear,Madisen K Hane,Abigail P Neal,Jimin Park,Sierra Wadood,Lauren Louise M Stallings

doi:10.3389/fclim.2021.718553

Abstract

Environmental geopolitics offers an analytical approach that considers how environmental themes are brought into the service of geopolitical agendas. Of particular concern are claims about environment-related security and risk and the justification of actions (or inactions) proposed to deal with those claims. Environmental geopolitical analysis focuses on geographical knowledge and how that knowledge is generated and applied to stabilize specific understandings of the world. Climate engineering is a realm in which certain kinds of geographical knowledge, in the form of scientific interpretations of environmental interactions, are utilized to support a selective agenda that, despite claims about benefiting people and environments on a global scale, may be shown to reinforce uneven relationships of power as well as patterns of injustice. This paper focuses on how the IPCC AR5 discusses and portrays climate engineering. This particular conversation is significant, since the IPCC is widely recognized as reflecting current, international science and understanding of climate change processes and possible responses. We demonstrate an initial, environmental geopolitical analysis of this portrayal and discussion around climate engineering proposals by observing how the role and meaning of environmental features is limited, how human agency and impact in these scenarios is selective, and how insufficient attention is paid to spatial dimensions and impacts of these proposals. This paper contributes to a larger conversation about why it matters how we engage in discussion about climate impacts and issues; a central argument is that it is vital that we consider these proposed plans in terms of what they aim to secure, for whom, how and where.

Highlights

There is widespread realization that humans have altered the planet, unintentionally, through farreaching applications of technologies
In three sections structured around the key observations of environmental geopolitics, we offer a critical analysis of these particular claims about how to approach a given problem, but about how the conversation about climate engineering, as a whole, is portrayed by the IPCC and how notions of security and risk appear to propel that conversation in particular directions
An environmental geopolitics analysis is useful in identifying agendas or values embedded within a political claim about the environment

Summary

Introduction

There is widespread realization that humans have altered the planet, unintentionally, through farreaching applications of technologies. One response to that realization is to suggest that humans re-alter the planet, intentionally, through far-reaching applications of different technologies. Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) technologies aim to capture CO2 as a greenhouse gas and remove it from the atmosphere by trapping or storing it in vegetation, deep underground, or human-constructed chambers built for this purpose. The idea is that removing heat-trapping gas from the atmosphere will slow the rising temperature of the atmosphere where these gases from human activity are collecting. Another category of climate engineering approaches is Solar Radiation Management (SRM) which aims to reflect incoming solar radiation before it enters the atmosphere. SRM technologies could mask some effects of climate change but require intensive maintenance to avoid lapses of abrupt warming; neither technology would be a feasible, stand-alone alternative to mitigation of atmospheric warming (Vaughan et al, 2011)

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