HOME Alliance will join New York Climate Week that will take place between September 20-27, 2026. Along with Friends of the Earth US (FoE US), International Cryosphere Climate Initiative (ICCI), we will bring together Indigenous Peoples, academics, climate activists and civil society experts for an event  focused on polar geoengineering risks and growing resistance against it.

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Scientific Assessment of Geoengineering Proposals for Polar Regions

The impacts of ice loss at both poles - whether sea ice, glaciers, or the great polar ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica - as well as greenhouse gas emissions from permafrost thaw has driven increasing talk of various geoengineering schemes aimed specifically at polar regions. Such proposals have moved from the drawing board to, in some cases, outdoor experiments aimed at deployment and drawing philanthropic funding, investor interest, and considerable press attention. Schemes include injecting reflective aerosols into the stratosphere, pumping seawater over sea ice to thicken it, pumping water beneath an ice sheet to slow its slide into the ocean, placing barriers to block warmer water from eroding ice from below and fertilizing oceans in different manners to draw down carbon dioxide.

Last year more than forty polar and climate scientists published an extensively peer-reviewed and detailed assessment of five such "polar" geoengineering proposals, presenting a set of criteria which can be used also to evaluate any future such proposals. This panel brings together several co-authors of that assessment to explain these criteria, how they were applied to these five schemes and how they might be used to assess future such proposals, to avoid displacing the essential monitoring and research to give early warning of ice sheet instability, shifts in ocean currents such as the AMOC, and more effective means of lowering temperature through sustainable carbon drawdown.

This event is for researchers, funders, policymakers, journalists, and civil society advocates looking for clear and objective scientific methods to assess this growing push to engineer the poles.

Co-organizers:  Friends of the Earth US (FoE US), International Cryosphere Climate Initiative (ICCI), Hands Off Mother Earth Alliance (HOME Alliance)

Time: 13.00-14:30 EDT | 17.00-18.30 UTC

Where: 250 West 34th Street, 2nd Floor, Manhattan, New York, New York, 10119

In-person and Virtual Registration: https://bit.ly/PolarGeoengineeringNYCW2026 

Speakers:
Dr. Julie Brigham-Grette, Distinguished Professor and Head of the Department of Geosciences at UMass Amherst; U.S. Representative to the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP) of the Arctic Council; former Chair of the U.S. Polar Resource Board and head of the AGU Cryosphere Section

Dr. Bill Hare, CEO and Founder, Climate Analytics

Dr. Deneb Karentz, Professor Emeritus of the Department of Biology, University of San Francisco; Vice-President Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research

Dr. Leigh Sterns, Professor of Earth and Environmental Science Graduate Chair, University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Ben Orlove, Professor of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis; Adjunct Senior Research Scientist, International Research Institute for Climate Prediction, Columbia University, New York

Dr. Susana Hancock, Global Mountains Director, International Cryosphere Climate Initiative