GCR Policy Newsletter (10 July 2023)

Integrated risk reduction and geoengineering research

This twice-monthly newsletter highlights the latest research and news on global catastrophic risk (GCR). It looks at policy efforts around the world to reduce the risk and identifies insights from the research for policymakers and advocates.

‘Geoengineering’ by Georgia O'Keeffe (produced by DALL·E 2)

---

Reducing the integrated set of threats

The world is currently experiencing a global polycrisis, which is the causal entanglement of crises in multiple global systems in ways that significantly degrade humanity’s prospects, according to a paper by Cascade Institute. Governments must focus on crisis interactions rather than isolated crises, address systems architecture not individual events, and exploit high-leverage intervention points. (June 2023)

Organizing global catastrophic risks by consequences helps in risk prioritization, while classifying risks by source or cause aids in risk prevention and mitigation, according to a new academic paper. Analysing risk processes and interactions with human systems opens the policy frame to broader policies of risk response and resilience. (19 June 2023)

Policy comment: Reducing global catastrophic risk requires viewing the risk as an integrated set of complex threats and vulnerabilities. This integrated view better allows for approaches to dealing with shared risk factors that exacerbate individual threats, cascades from one threat to another, and emergent risk arising from combinations of threats. Advocates and policymakers should prioritize policy proposals that reduce the collective set of global catastrophic threats, and should ensure that policies for specific threats do not unintentionally increase overall risk. These policies include overarching approaches that provide the policy settings, frameworks and strategies for GCR as a whole, as well as tackling policy areas that cut across multiple global catastrophic threats, such as economic, national security or foreign policy. Further research is also needed to better identify these policy approaches as well as the potential high-leverage intervention points.

---

Considering the policy of geoengineering research

Any potential comprehensive research program must encompass the societal as well as the scientific dimensions of solar radiation modification, according to a White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) report. Research on solar radiation modification impacts to date have been ad hoc and fragmented, rather than being the product of a comprehensive strategy. (30 June 2023)

The risks, impacts and unintended consequences that solar geoengineering technologies pose are poorly understood, and necessary rules, procedures and institutions have not been developed, according to a European Commission Joint Communication. These technologies introduce new risks to people and ecosystems, while they could also increase power imbalances between nations, spark conflicts and raises a myriad of ethical, legal, governance and political issues. (28 June 2023)

Simplifying the science and governance related to solar radiation management is especially important given concerns that research is a first step on a slippery slope to eventual deployment, according to an article by Aaron Tang in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. But while there are many risks in conducting this research, abandoning the study of solar radiation management might not be the route to take either. There genuinely could be the chance that some research helps inform good policy, reducing the risks of dangerous deployment. (30 June 2023)

Solar geoengineering, either its deployment or lack thereof, will have important consequences for the most vulnerable people and, by extension humanitarian needs, according to an editorial in Frontiers in Climate. This necessitates that humanitarians must enter the conversation. (20 June 2023)

As the world continues to fail to reduce and control global surface temperatures, the use of solar radiation management (SRM) technology by one actor or by a small coalition of actors is becoming increasingly likely, according to new journal article. The threat would need to be existential in nature for SRM deployment to be morally justified, which would mean that the US government ought to invest in SRM research because it is the most capable actor. (June 2023)

Policy comment: Policymakers must grapple with the complexity and uncertainty around geoengineering. Having no policy on geoengineering is itself a policy choice. Should the effects of climate change become more extreme, and the technological capability become more accessible, those countries without a clear understanding or plan for geoengineering will be held captive to the actions of other countries and non-state actors. A careful but strategic research program is needed. It could avoid the development and testing of the technology while researching the ethical, environmental, legal, humanitarian, economic, geopolitical and security aspects of geoengineering. This research program should be underpinned by a framework of responsible research, including oversight, transparency and inclusivity. It would also help foster nascent efforts at international cooperation and coordination, while providing a platform for national-level governance of the risk that could emerge from geoengineering.