New Report Warns Geoengineering the Climate Is a 'Risky Distraction'

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A new report makes the case that the fossil fuel industry prefers geoengineering as anย approach for addressing climate change becauseย it allowsย the industry to keep arguingย for continuedย fossil fuelย use.

Inย Fuel to the Fire: How Geoengineering Threatens to Entrench Fossil Fuels and Accelerate the Climate Crisis,ย the Center for International Environmental Law (CEIL)ย warnsย that geoengineering, which includesย technologies to remove huge amounts of carbon dioxide and to shoot particles into the atmosphere to block sunlight,ย potentially offers more of a problem for theย climate than aย solution.

โ€œOur research shows that nearly all proposed geoengineering strategies fail a fundamental test: do they reduce emissions and help end our reliance on fossil fuels?โ€ saidย CIEL President Carroll Muffett, who co-authored the report with the support of theย Heinrich Boellย Foundation.

The report’s title page features aย quote from former ExxonMobil CEO (andย former Secretary of State)ย Rex Tillersonย that highlights the appeal of geoengineering to hisย industry:

โ€œItโ€™s an engineering problem, and it has engineering solutions โ€ฆ The fear factor that people want to throw out there to say we just have to stop this [burning fossil fuels], I do notย accept.โ€

Inventing new technological solutions to deal withย climate change has an obvious allure, andย the mainstream media offers a steady flow of stories supporting this concept, but only according to theย headlines.

This week The New York Times ran an in-depth story, โ€œThe Tiny Swiss Company That Thinks It Can Help Stop Climate Change.โ€ It highlighted a start-up company working on removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere โ€” one of the mainย geoengineeringย strategies.

However, like many of these stories, the hopeful headline doesn’t matchย reality. Theย technology touted currently has no way of being scaled up to a level where it could have an actual impact on the climate โ€” and even if it were possible โ€” would beย decades away. Decades the world doesn’tย have toย wait.

In order to meet international targets to limit global warming, the world needs to dramatically reduce itsย fossil fuel consumption and fast, according to climate scientists.ย The fantasy of unproven technologies constitutingย the bulk of geoengineering approaches providesย a lifeline for the fossil fuel industry to keep justifying its future in a warmingย world.

The Green New Deal movement, along with striking school children, an army of activists like Bill McKibben of 350,ย and increasing numbers of Democratic politicians are pushing the scientifically based message that in order to prevent catastrophic climate change, the world must beginย transitioning away from fossil fuelsย now.

When Denial No Longer Works,ย Delay

While sowing doubt about climate science has been anย effective public relations strategy for the fossil fuel industry for decades, public polling reveals that the majority of Americansย agree thatย climate change is real and requires action. Reading the crowd, the fossil fuel industry might then be inclined to move to the next best approach: delaying the actionsย which representย an existential threat toย it.

โ€œFor six decades oil companies have argued that climate change does not exist, that itโ€™s not caused by human activity, and that if it is, itโ€™s not a problem,โ€ saidย Steven Feit, co-author of the CEIL report. โ€œNow, these companies are claiming to accept that climate change is an engineering problem โ€ฆย Like their decades of denial, this action is profoundlyย dangerous.โ€

As the report notes, geoengineering focuses onย modifying the global climate systemย via methods like removing carbon dioxide from the air or โ€œdimming the sunโ€ with solar radiation management. Regardless of the theoretical effectiveness of the various proposed methods within these categories, all facilitate continued fossil fuel use, something industry advocates openlyย acknoweldge.


Proposed solar radiation management using a tethered balloon to inject sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere. Credit: Hughhunt, CC BYSAย 3.0

This is a feature of the geoengineering approach, not a bug.ย Oneย paper quoted in the report notes that the โ€œmain advantage of [carbon] sequestration is its compatibility with existing fossil fuel infrastructure.โ€ Sequestration refers to the process of pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and storing it. (Currently, technological, rather than soil or plant-based, sequestration primarily takes the formย of using carbon dioxide toย pump more oil and gas out of existingย wells.)

What geoengineering promises is that if humanity waits long enough, scientists and innovators will develop new technologies that allowย us to burn fossil fuels and not impact the climate becauseย we can just pull the carbon back out of the atmosphere. Or perhaps if that doesnโ€™t work, we can just cool the Earth by injecting sunlight-reflecting particles into theย atmosphere.

All geoengineering can offer right now, in 2019, is hope that continued use of fossil fuels might not lead to catastrophic climate change. But it does nothing to address the other ongoing environmental impacts that comeย with fossil fuel production andย consumption.

Meanwhile, decarbonizing the global economy andย ending the fossil fuel era, using technologies available and largely competitive today, will reduce the world’s climate risks to food, water, ecosystems, and humanย lives.

Focusing on Known Climateย Solutions

The authors of the new CEIL reportย argue that current climate goals are achievable without relying on geoengineering but that any scenario for meeting them would โ€œrequire an early, rapid phase-out of fossilย fuels.โ€

The CEIL report bases this statement onย aย 2018 United Nations (UN) climate report. As DeSmog has reported, that report also found that to limit warming to 1.5ยฐCย (2.7ยฐF),ย โ€œall scenarios rely in some way on so-called Carbon Dioxide Removal technologies, such as afforestation, reforestation, soil carbon sequestration, and the largely untested and controversialย BECCSย โ€” bioenergy with carbon captureย andย storage.โ€

In addition, theย UN report notedย carbon dioxide removal technologies โ€œdeployed at scale is unproven, and reliance on such technology is a majorย risk.โ€

It isnโ€™t hard to see why the fossil fuel industry prefersย approaches that don’t mean suddenly phasing it out. And while the CEIL authors admit that this approach is โ€œambitious,โ€ they also say it is achievable. Geoengineering aside, authors of the UN report use similar language describingย what it will take to reach international climateย goals.

Princeton professor Stephen Pacala supportsย efforts to remove carbon dioxideย but says he is realistic about doing this on a global scale, as he explained to The New York Times:

โ€œThe idea of bringing direct air capture [carbon dioxide removal] up to 10 billion tons by the middle or later part of the century is such a herculean task it would require an industrial scale-up the likes of which the world has neverย seen.โ€


A representation of the volume of one metric ton of carbon dioxide gas.ย Credit:ย Carbon Visuals,ย CC BY 2.0ย 

Whetherย ending reliance onย fossil fuels orย designing a whole new global industry to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere,ย both would require a coordinated effort unlike any that has come before in the history of humanย civilization.

However, scientists know that no longer burning fossil fuels will benefit the climateย and viable technologies for this energy transition already exist. As Pacala noted, โ€œWind and solar are now the cheapest forms of energy in the right locations.โ€ That is quite convenient at a time when the world needs cheap, low-carbon energyย sources.

On the other hand, betting the future on unproven geoengineering technologiesย which enableย the fossil fuel industry to continue drilling, mining, burning, and profiting while contributing toย climate changeย โ€” this could also work. But as the CEIL report argues, this is aย far riskier approach for the rest of human civilization โ€” with a much lower chance ofย success.

Main image: Earthย Credit: Rubรฉn Moreno Montolรญu,ย CC BYSAย 2.0

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Justin Mikulka is a research fellow at New Consensus. Prior to joining New Consensus in October 2021, Justin reported for DeSmog, where he began in 2014. Justin has a degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Cornell University.

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