Why geoengineering isn’t the answer to climate change

Climate-altering technologies are increasingly viewed as a possible solution to the climate crisis—from creating or preserving polar ice to removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere to using particles to reflect solar radiation. Many of these geoengineering projects have set their sights on the Arctic. But the implications of using geoengineering are still largely unknown.

MARTIN SEEGER is a glaciologist and polar scientist at the University of Exeter. He’s one of more than 40 researchers from around the world who contributed to a paper examining the risks that geoengineering pose for the polar regions. He told The Circle why these risks are just too high.

Why is the Arctic viewed as a place to launch more invasive geoengineering projects?

When the polar regions change, there are global consequences. So a geoengineering project that aims to halt or reverse the change is quite appealing for some people. If you could resolve that change, you would have a positive impact on the rest of the world. The work I’ve been doing with many, many other authors has examined some of these initiatives, and we have concluded that none of them stack up as a solution to the immediate issue, which is that continuing to burn fossil fuels will amplify global warming over the next few decades. We know that to resolve this, we need to get to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.

What are some examples of the kinds of projects that are being proposed?

A well-known idea is to inject aerosols into the upper atmosphere to cause it to reflect sunlight rather than allowing the sun’s energy to hit the Earth’s surface. It’s very controversial. It stems from the idea that if you have a volcanic eruption, huge amounts of volcanic material can be pushed into the atmosphere, and that can have a temporary but noticeable cooling effect. So the idea is: What if we just did that ourselves, and did it to permanently cool the planet? You might be able to do that. But the logistics behind it are challenging, and it doesn’t resolve other aspects of global warming, such as ocean acidification. In fact, it will contribute to further ocean acidification. As an intervention, it would be colossally irresponsible because we don’t know what the consequences might be.

For the Arctic in particular, there are projects that are trying to increase or enhance the albedo—or reflectivity—of the sea ice that exists, because that does the world a great favour by bouncing solar energy back out into space rather than absorbing it. Arctic sea ice is retreating really quickly, and the idea is that by increasing the albedo, we can either preserve more sea ice or put measures in place to grow sea ice artificially. There’s no reason to assume that you couldn’t artificially grow sea ice at a really small scale. There are some experiments that have tried to do that, and they kind of worked. But the colossal scale of the Arctic Sea ice that you would have to adjust makes the whole thing practically impossible.

What risks do these geoengineering projects pose for the Arctic?

Well, it depends on what you want to do. Many of them introduce risks to the environment. Sometimes they’re called “unintended consequences,” but that’s a misnomer because we kind of know what the consequences might be. Still, some people seem happy to go along with them.

Suppose that thickening sea ice can work and that we could bring thousands of devices into the Arctic to do it. That would require a level of presence in the Arctic that is far in excess of what we have at the moment. Consultation with Indigenous Peoples would need to happen. And who would make the decision to do it? It is very difficult to see how we would ever have any governance to support it on an international level.

In the example of intentionally putting a pollutant into the Arctic system, the other risk is to the marine biology. These are fragile ecosystems, and introducing anything that might interfere with them could be felt permanently, or at least for a very long time.

Overall, introducing people, industry and intentional pollutants into the Arctic would make it a very different place from what it is right now.

If these ideas pose such risks, why do you think they are being considered?

When I started to see these ideas being presented at climate COPs and other climate meetings without challenge, I realized that the people who were accepting the ideas as feasible were doing so because that’s how they’re presented. But I and others know that these are actually unworkable.

There are also vested interests when it comes to geoengineering. Suppose you’re an oil and gas company that is making huge amounts of money as people continue to burn fossil fuels. It would be very tempting to support a geoengineering idea that, frankly, will never happen. There is just the pretence that they are contributing to a solution by spending a little money on research, when they know full well it will never actually happen. That is something I think we all need to keep our eyes open for.