This talk is organised by the Oxford Geoengineering Programme, an Oxford Martin School Programme

This talk by Judith Kreuter from the Institute of Political Science at the University of Muenster will explore the governance of proposed geoengineering techniques.

All welcome

Speaker: Judith Kreuter, Institute of Political Science, University of Münster

Summary: Climate Engineering (CE) is the deliberate, large-scale intervention into the climate system to address anthropogenic climate change. The term subsumes a variety of technologies and methods, such as spraying sulfur particles into the stratosphere to reduce the heat from the sun reaching Earth or fertilizing oceans in order to increase their carbon uptake. CE measures, if deployed, would pose tremendous challenges to national and global governance as they could influence existing conflicts as well as produce new ones through their effects on the climate and other natural as well as social systems.

First steps have been made in the direction of a dedicated CE regulatory regime, such as the Oxford Principles or the Solar Radiation Management Governance Initiative. But also past technology regulation regimes as well as governance of environmental issues on a global and international scale can give insights into the needs and challenges of governing CE. For example, the Environmental Modification Convention (ENMOD) of 1977 and the international regime on nuclear power regulation are drawn upon as examples for the governance of CE. Conversely, new theoretical approaches are proposed based on the assumption that existing regulation is not applicable to CE and not suitable as an example to govern this emerging set of technologies.

This talk will give an overview over the proposed approaches to governing CE and argue that, so far, governance of these technologies is limited to mostly local, science-driven approaches.