Oxford Martin School

Unfortunately, the final seminar in our 'Getting to Zero' series, which was supposed to be delivered by Professor Schellnhuber on 'restitution of the atmosphere', was cancelled. Fortunately, Professor David Keith (University of Calgary) was speaking on 3 December at the Smith School for Enterprise and the Environment about using geoengineering techniques in the efforts to reduce or eliminate carbon emissions.

Professor Keith's talk certainly provided a wealth of insights into the problems involved in bringing about the necessary reductions in carbon emissions. Professor Keith, a co-author of the Royal Society's recent report on geoengineering, argued that the main problem we face when considering what to do climate change is the combination of uncertainty about the exact effects of about global warming and the fact that most solutions, from reducing emissions to geoengineering, will take a long time to have much effect. So, even if we did manage to reach 'zero' carbon emissions, we have already polluted the atmosphere to such an extent that this may not avoid the potential dramatic consequences for humans and ecosystems.

This situation is one of the most compelling arguments in favour of further geoengineering research. We are not responding fast enough to the threat of global warming and so, despite the risks, geoengineering may be necessary in order to buy us more time to implement more perfect strategies. Geoengineering is not an ideal solution but, as other authors of the Royal Society report have pointed out, we need a more coherent research programme to ensure that this resource is available if it is ever needed and to make sure that learn we know about any potential problems (whether technical or governance related) as far in advance as possible.

We have had a lot of events in Oxford recently about the case for geoengineering and you can read our blog following the lecture by John Shepherd, the lead author of the Royal Society report on geoengineering here.

As the term draws to a close, we have also taken the opportunity to reflect on the lessons that have emerged from the 'getting to zero' seminar series. You can read more about this in a separate posting here.