Abstract
Much in Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is part of a participatory turn within the Technology Assessment (TA) and Science and Technology Studies (STS) community. This has an influence also on the evaluation of Climate Engineering (CE) options, as it will be shown by reference to the SPICE project. The SPICE example and the call for democratisation of science and innovation raise some interesting concerns for the normative evaluation of CE options that will be addressed in the paper. It is by far not clear, or so it will be argued, how much of the innovation process of CE technologies should be put in the hands of social actors and the wider public. This is due not only to special features about CE technologies but also to some more principle concerns against some features of participatory RRI approaches. Still, this does by no way mean that ethical and societal issues in the context of CE technologies should be ignored. Rather, the paper will argue that one can take a step back to expert TA linked to the evolution of approaches of ethical impact analysis in this area. This does not only lead to reconsider the emphasis on participation and democratisation of research and innovation, but also opens up for an alternative evaluative framework for CE technologies developed in the last part of the paper.
Highlights
Much in Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is part of a participatory turn within the Technology Assessment (TA) and Science and Technology Studies (STS) community
In accordance with the report of the Royal Society on Climate Engineering (CE) one can discriminate between solar radiation management (SRM), aiming “to reduce the net incoming short-wave solar radiation received, by deflecting sunlight, or by increasing the reflectivity of the atmosphere, clouds or the Earth’s surface”(Shepherd et al 2009, 79) and carbon dioxide removal (CDR), directed to “reduce the levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, allowing outgoing long-wave heat radiation to escape more ”(Ibid 76)
The stage-gate panel, which included atmospheric scientists, engineers and social scientists, as well as an adviser to an environmental NGO, evaluated the Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering (SPICE) project by five criteria for responsible innovation. They were: “the test-bed deployment was safe and principal risks had been identified, managed and deemed acceptable; the test-bed deployment was compliant with relevant regulations; the nature and purpose of SPICE would be clearly communicated to all relevant parties to inform and promote balanced discussion; future applications and impacts had been described, and mechanisms put in place to review these in the light of new information; and mechanisms had been identified to understand public and stakeholder views regarding the predicted applications and impacts.” (Macnaghten and Owen 2011)
Summary
In late September 2011, it was planned to send a balloon with a pipe attached to it 1 km up into the sky, to “explore the engineering challenges of using this mechanism and the accuracy/ efficacy of using computer models to predict the pipe and balloon movement”(Parkhill and Pidgeon 2011, 4). From the start of the current debate on SRM in 2006 there has been a widespread acknowledgement in the scientific as well as the political community that research and development as well as the possible deployment of such options raise many important ethical, societal, and political issues These concerns caught up with the SPICE project. The implementation of these principles was supposed to be part of stage-gate processes, similar to the one in the SPICE project and intended to stimulate discussions between scientists, policy-makers, civil society groups and citizens on overarching societal values for the guidance of CE governance. Let us start by the origins of RRI and look at some basic challenges, before we return to climate engineering and search for an adequate evaluative framework
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