‘Geoengineering’ is the intentional technological manipulation of the
Earth’s atmosphere and ecosystems at scales so large that it would interfere
with and alter global climate systems. Most geoengineering technologies are
still only speculative ideas, yet they are extremely controversial.

Geoengineering is not intended to reduce production of fossil fuels
or emissions of greenhouse gases, the root causes of global warming. Its
proponents seek instead to reduce the warming effects of the sun, either
by reflecting some of its radiation back into space or by removing carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere and somehow storing it. Solar geoengineering
includes widely contested proposals to fly fleets of aeroplanes around the
globe to continuously spray large quantities of sun-blocking aerosols into
the stratosphere, or to cover extensive areas of Arctic ice with glass beads.
Carbon dioxide removal at geoengineering scale includes suggestions to
fertilize swathes of the ocean to cause massive algal blooms, or to convert
enormous land areas to tree plantations with the intention of burning the
wood and capturing the CO2.

All geoengineering approaches involve huge risks, some to the point of
threatening both ecosystem and societal breakdown. Many impacts would
be irreversible and impossible to predict and would exacerbate existing
injustices. This is particularly the case with solar geoengineering, where the
injection of aerosols into the stratosphere could disrupt monsoons, intensify
droughts and threaten the livelihoods of billions of people. Worse yet, if this
process were initiated, and then at some future time the sun-dimming aerosol
injections were to stop, the masked heating effect of the CO2 accumulated in
the atmosphere could cause sudden and massive temperature rises, prevent-
ing any chance of adaptation and driving a catastrophic ‘termination shock’.

Many scholars, experts and activists have concluded that such
technologies cannot be managed equitably and safely. Advancing solar
geoengineering assumes the existence of stable global systems of governance
that could function without failure for hundreds or thousands of years –
an impossible requirement. Allowing the development of these technologies
also leads to the frightening prospect of powerful states, organizations or even
wealthy individuals exerting unilateral control of them, deepening today’s
inequities in power and financial access, and escalating the risk of wars over
attempts to control the Earth’s climate systems. Around the world, there are
growing calls for an immediate international ban on the advancement of
solar geoengineering technology in the form of an International Non-Use
Agreement (see www.solargeoeng.org), and many are working to strengthen
the existing geoengineering moratorium under the UN Convention on
Biological Diversity.

Attempts to advance real-world research and experimentation on
solar geoengineering are consistently met with fierce resistance from
Indigenous peoples, scientists and civil society organizations, who warn
that humanity must not head down the slippery slope of normalization
(see www.stopsolargeo.org and www.geoengineeringmonitor.org). Attempts at
repackaging the contested term ‘geoengineering’ into new, less tarnished
terms, such as ‘climate intervention’, ‘climate repair’ and ‘climate protec-
tion technologies’, shows the ways in which certain actors are attempting to
obfuscate the discourse around these controversial technologies.

All geoengineering schemes are attempts to manipulate the Earth
with the same domineering mindset that got us into the climate crisis in
the first place. The implications of vested interests mainstreaming the idea
of geoengineering by discussing it as if it were a viable option may be as
dangerous as the impacts of actually deploying geoengineering. Suggesting
that geoengineering is a ‘plan B’ provides convenient excuses for the fossil
fuel industry, tech billionaires and other promoters of these ideas to delay
and derail the fundamental societal transformations that are urgently
needed. Geoengineering is not an option. Intensified climate disruptions
and injustices call for something very different: a focus on sufficiency and
well-being, curbing emissions at the source and rapidly phasing out fossil
fuel production, while prioritizing principles of equity, local livelihood and
ecological integrity.