11 November 2009
Report on Survey on Climate Systems Management
Survey Results
On September 12, 2009 we posted a series of questions on the Academy’s website aimed at eliciting the interest of Fellows in a study on the governance implications of geoengineering the climate, one of the hottest topics in climate science. Over the course of the next ten days 14 responses were forthcoming and of these only five answered the questionnaire. Of the remaining nine communications, most expressed general support for the proposed study, although most were not specific, had another study in mind or, in one case, questioned our motives(!) In general, the responses were helpful and moderately encouraging.
There was not great geographic spread in the respondents: 5 from the US, 3 from the UK and one each from Italy, France, Sweden, Spain and Germany. (One is not in the current directory.)
While the response is comparable in number to the questionnaire sent on the UN Intellectual History Project a few years ago, that response evidenced greater engagement with the issues. A simultaneous survey of members on the employment issue, in contrast, has shown a relatively high level of interest and engagement by Fellows.
What is happening elsewhere?
We believe that the topic is new and understandably not many Fellows are prepared to engage in it. At the same time, among those concerned with climate issues, the topic is hot and is attracting a good deal of attention.
For example, since our survey was circulated the Royal Society has issued an important report on geoengineering advocating scientific and related research on possible impacts. The Society will hold a public program in follow-up on January 19th in London to which our colleague Geoffrey Hamer will attend and report. A first meeting of the US National Academy of Science has been held on the topic. New sessions on geoengineering have been added to the upcoming Copenhagen conference involving some who are working with us (e.g., Dr. Blackstock), and a number of think tanks have held or will hold discussions on governance and geoengineering.
*Official Hearings
In addition there has been a hearing in the U.K. Parliament on geoengineering and last week there was a hearing by the U.S. House of Representatives Science and Technology Committee on geoengineering. It was announced at that hearing that the U.S. Congress and the House of Commons committees would coordinate their hearings in an informal agreement to alternate hearings between the two bodies.
Bob Berg attended the House hearings and it is worth a brief report to you. There were five witnesses: Ken Caldeira who chaired the US National Academy of Sciences discussions on geoengineering, and who was the lead-off speaker for the Academy’s July 2009 symposium on geoengineering; John Shepard, who chaired the Royal Society’s study; Lee Lane who directs the geoengineering project of the American Enterprise Institute; Alan Robock of Rutgers University who has written about the risks of geoengineering; and James Fleming of Colby College who spoke as an historian of various attempts to “fix” the climate.
The key point across the hearing was that no one was endorsing deployment of geoengineering remedies, even if they are developed, but certainly there was a plurality of views by the Committee and witnesses that research is important to have viable technologies on stand-by in case they are needed. Developing a suite of technologies was thought appropriate.
Caldeira explained solar radiation management and carbon dioxide removal as the two main avenues that need separate programs of research support and management. He downplayed ocean fertilization saying if he had to allocate research it would be 70% SRM, 25% CO2 removal and 5% ocean fertilization.
Shepard called for research not only on technology, but on environmental and social impacts. He endorsed the two lines of research suggested by Caldeira.
Lane made the economic case for geoengineering saying that in their view SRM would result in $200-700 billion in savings/year. (It was unclear whether this was for the US economy or the world.) He said that governance issues needed to be worked out to nurture, not stifle the needed research.
Robock stressed the need for both mitigation and adaptation and that geoengineering would be necessary “only in a planetary emergency.” He said he saw 7 benefits and 17 risks aside from technical questions such as delivery systems for aerosols and the need to restore monitoring of the stratosphere. Robock said such monitoring used to be provided by satellite but none are now deployed for this purpose. Among the risks of aerosols that he mentioned are drought in Asia and Africa, no more blue skies, ozone depletion, acidification of oceans, and the difficulty of reversibility. So, for different reasons, he also endorsed research, including a lot more climate modeling.
James Fleming did not think geoengineering was a good idea, but that research was needed on an interdisciplinary, international and inter-generational basis.
Much of the discussion was on what kind of research was needed and what agencies should pursue this. The answers given to this all involved official sponsors of scientific research. No suggestion was made as to where to lodge the social science, including governance queries.
The Democrats on the panel were engaged and the chair was knowledgeable. The Republicans ranged from a wise physicist to the “know nothing” wing who deny any climate change is taking place.
* Regional Conferences
The BioVision 2010 conference to be held at the Library of Alexandria, Egypt next April 11-15 will have as its lead plenary a session on geoengineering that we are helping to assemble. Nobelist Paul Crutzen will be the opening speaker and two other Nobelists will quite possibly join the session. This will be the first major session on geoengineering in the Middle East. About 1,500 hundred scientists and policy makers are expected.
We have also been invited by the Bertelsmann Foundation’s Global Policy Council to collaborate in putting on a discussion of governance of geoengineering in connection with meetings they are beginning to organize for this coming Fall in Shanghai on global governance of the environment. The Council includes several former heads of state and former foreign ministers.
We are looking for parallel opportunities in other regions and suggested potential venues would be welcome, particularly in Africa and Latin America.
Bob Berg talked with John Shepard about the plans of the Royal Society to take their discussions to other venues. Professor Shepard said that their strategy was to work with the national science academies of India, China and Russia and that they would be in contact with them.
New Climate Change Projections are Extremely Important
But the most significant development in recent months has been a new UNEP report that holds that the International Panel on Climate Change’s most recent report (2007) requires updating in light of current evidence of a more rapidly deteriorating climate. UNEP believes that temperature change will be three times more serious by the end of the century (i.e., up 6 degrees rather than 2 degrees) and that sea level rise will be four times worse (i.e., 6 feet rather than 1.5 feet.) This means that the rationale for geoengineering has increased markedly.
There is also a new study (World Bank, Center on Global Development) predicting storm surge displacement among populations in 500 coastal cities in developing countries. The study uses a model based upon the 2007 IPCC estimates, so with the new UNEP data, one can guesstimate how a combination of ocean rise and increased surge activity will play out.
Implications for the Academy’s work
These developments present an opportunity for us. While we do not see a level of interest yet in the Academy to ourselves create a staffed, major inquiry into the topic of governance of geoengineering, we do think we can provide a service to our Fellows and a wider community in four ways:
1. By organizing a compilation of the recent work on the topic of the governance of geoengineering, really an annotated reading list with links, and posting it on our website. We think some of the more interesting work on the topic will become available in January and that we ought to aim to shortly thereafter have a reading list for our Academy incorporating that work. Suggested items for this reading list would be most welcome along with associated web links. Later in the Spring there will be a major conference to develop a research protocol on field testing climate geoengineering technologies (modeled after the conference that established research protocols for DNA research) and we will also circulate those findings.
2. Placing the geoengineering governance issue in a wider context of humanity’s quickly evolving new relationships with the environment. None of the research we have seen does this. None of it is drawing upon considerations of mass psychology, which may account for both the very slow appreciation by leaders at many levels of the seriousness of the climate change challenge and the potential to rapidly change current perceptions. Drawing on philosophy and social sciences would enrich our understanding of the forces at work. One of us, Walt Anderson, is working on exactly this wider approach to understanding, which both of us believe will create a context in which the governance of geoengineering will fit.
3. By holding a simulation on governance. Proposed by Robert Horn of Stanford University and encouraged by committee members Jason Blackstock, International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis, Richard Benedick ( U.S.) National Council for Science and the Environment, and Clem Bezold Institute for Alternative Futures, the idea would be to hold a simulation for “gaming out” international negotiation on geoengineering, particularly regarding research. We have invited Drs. Horn and Blackstock to collaborate in organizing this.
4. Encouraging Regional Forums. So far the discussions on geoengineering and the wider issues of climate systems management have been largely confined to a few of the richer countries. We will actively foster discussions on these topics in other areas of the world to help make the discussion more inclusive. Our starting efforts will be in the Middle East (Alexandria) and East Asia (Shanghai), as noted above.
Based upon the reactions of Fellows to these services, we shall evaluate whether additional work by the Academy on the topic would be doable and useful.
We greatly appreciate the time and intellectual contributions of the committee of Fellows and others who have helped these considerations along, and for all the contributions received in answer to the questionnaire that was circulated.
Robert J. Berg
Walter T. Anderson
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