Rules for saving the climate
Climate engineering (or geoengineering) technologies attempt to ward off the worst effects of climate change by intervening in the global climate system. Both the potentials offered by climate engineering technologies in counteracting the threats of climate change and the risks that arise from the side effects of these technologies on natural, social and political systems must be taken in account. Michael Zürn, Director of the Research Unit Global Governance, and Stefan Schäfer, Berlin Graduate School for Transnational Studies (BTS), find a paradox of climate engineering. It consists in the circumstance that exactly those technologies which are capable of acting fast and effectively against rising temperatures at comparatively low costs, are also the technologies that are likely to create the greatest amount of social and political conflict.
To address this apparent paradox, the researchers argue that an institutional setting for researching and potentially deploying climate engineering technologies is needed, which creates a sufficiently high degree of social and political legitimacy and addresses a set of specified problems connected to climate engineering. First of all, research on potential uses of climate engineering technologies needs to be coordinated internationally in a multilateral institutional setting. Secondly, an international climate engineering agency should be created that coordinates and disseminates research on climate engineering.
Michael Zürn/Stefan Schäfer: The Paradox of Climate Engineering. In: Global Policy, 2013, Volume 4, Issue 3, pp. 266–277.