The prospect of developing a feasible and relatively inexpensive method of geoengineering raises numerous important ethical and political questions. For example, to what ends may geoengineering technology be put if the world is to do right by future generations? How does the prospect of geoengineering affect the responsibility of wealthy countries to help pay for the cost of building clean energy systems in the industrializing world? Who has the right to decide whether large-scale geoengineering will be allowed and what would a legitimate process of deployment look like? What are the most... Read more about Lucas Stanczyk — The Ethical and Political Dimensions of Solar Geoengineering

This project sought to advance our understanding of a key set of governance issues and, it is hoped, move the research community some steps further toward a shared set of assumptions and consensus on options for solar geoengineering governance. The core of the approach was to assemble a group of global experts in a structured dialogue, based on existing and new research, to identify and advance answers to challenging governance questions.

In September 2018, the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements with collaboration and support from Harvard’s Solar Geoengineering...

Read more about Robert Stavins — Governance of Solar Geoengineering: Advancing Understanding and Action

This project proposes laboratory investigations of alternate materials with properties that may make them more suitable candidates for stratospheric SRM. Specifically, the project proposes studies that address direct physical risks associated with SRM, i.e., effects on stratospheric ozone and temperature, and consequences when particles settle through the lower stratosphere into the troposphere, i.e. impacts on tropospheric chemistry, composition and radiation. This only represents one vignette of the risks associated with stratospheric SRM, but it is critical to quantify these risks as soon... Read more about Frank Keutsch — Heterogeneous Chemistry and Ageing of Designer Aerosol Particles to Assess the Risk of Solar Geoengineering

Geoengineering poses a fascinating set of political and social questions. Some of these are descriptive and others are more theoretical. This project focuses on the following question: What are public and elite attitudes about geoengineering, are they changing over time and how, and are there sub-communities of individuals that are or could be thought leaders (both in a negative or positive way)? Furthermore this project examines the types of specific arguments the public and elites bring to bear around geoengineering.