Bender Rodriguez
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Climate geoengineering is so cheap and potentially game-changing that even private entrepreneurs have tried it out, albeit at small scales. Climate engineering scholars David Keith at the University of Chicago and Wake Smith at Yale think it would take no more than 15 souped-up Gulfstream jets to send up, say, 100,000 tons of sulfur per year into the lower stratosphere to block solar rays, at an annual cost of some $500 million. This could happen in as little as five years.
Cooling the Earth by 1 degree Celsius for a decade would require sending up several million tons annually, in part because sun-reflecting aerosols endure only about a year in the stratosphere. Aircraft have not yet been developed to deliver that much stuff that high. Setting up a proper fleet could take more than a decade. But hard-hit countries will increasingly be tempted to try to use such a shortcut to stave off further warming.
Yet most of the world’s governments refuse to engage. This year, the U.N. Environment Assembly in Nairobi rejected a proposition by the Swiss to appoint an expert group to collect and offer advice on the state of knowledge about the science of Solar Radiation Management, its development, deployment and potential impacts, including risks, benefits and uncertainties. The assembly couldn’t even agree on a watered-down proposal to establish a repository for existing scientific information on the technology. This was the second time world negotiators made this mistake; a similar proposition by Switzerland was rebuffed at the Environment Assembly in 2019.
www.technologyreview.com
Cooling the Earth by 1 degree Celsius for a decade would require sending up several million tons annually, in part because sun-reflecting aerosols endure only about a year in the stratosphere. Aircraft have not yet been developed to deliver that much stuff that high. Setting up a proper fleet could take more than a decade. But hard-hit countries will increasingly be tempted to try to use such a shortcut to stave off further warming.
Yet most of the world’s governments refuse to engage. This year, the U.N. Environment Assembly in Nairobi rejected a proposition by the Swiss to appoint an expert group to collect and offer advice on the state of knowledge about the science of Solar Radiation Management, its development, deployment and potential impacts, including risks, benefits and uncertainties. The assembly couldn’t even agree on a watered-down proposal to establish a repository for existing scientific information on the technology. This was the second time world negotiators made this mistake; a similar proposition by Switzerland was rebuffed at the Environment Assembly in 2019.
![www.technologyreview.com](https://wp.technologyreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/GettyImages-1256472841-crop.jpg?resize=1200,600)
Solar geoengineering could start soon if it starts small
It's possible to start a subscale deployment in just a few years. The climate effects would be tiny, but the geopolitical impact could be significant.