The Case Against Climate Geoengineering Acknowledgements Biofuelwatch, Heinrich Böll Foundation and ETC Group are grateful to all who collaborated in writing and reviewing this report. We would like to give special thanks to Lili Fuhr, Linda Schneider, Anja Chalmin, Holly Dressel, Joana Chelo, Oliver Munnion and Simon Fischer for research and writing support. We also gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the Heinrich Böll Foundation, the CS Fund, the Rockerfeller Brothers Fund, and the Sowing Diversity = Harvesting Security International Initiative to produce this report. Biofuelwatch, Heinrich Böll Foundation and ETC Group are solely responsible for the views expressed in this report. The original research for this report was done by the ETC Group and Biofuelwatch, with the financial support and collaboration of the Heinrich Böll Foundation. Editing by Kathy Jo Wetter and Trudi Zundel Design by Stig First published November 2017 Second print February 2018 All our publications are downloadable free of charge at: www.biofuelwatch.org.uk www.boell.de www.etcgroup.org Published under the Creative Commons licence: Attribution – Non-Commercial – No Derivatives 3.0 BIGTHE BAD FIX The Case Against Climate Geoengineering www.etcgroup.org www.biofuelwatch.org www.boell.de/en Contents 5 Chapter 1 – Geoengineering: The Emperors’ New Climate A New, Environmental Empire; Empire’s Techno-fixes 6 Does the Emperor have Clothes? Empirical Hubris in History 7 A “Climate of the Willing”? 8 The Emperors’ new hose? 10 Safe, fair and ecologically sustainable solutions to the climate crisis 11 Chapter 2 – Geoengineering: The Technologies 12 Box: Three categories of Geoengineering as proposed by geoengineers 14 Land: Geoengineering technologies that target terrestrial ecosystems 17 Oceans: Geoengineering technologies that target marine ecosystems 18 Air: Geoengineering technologies that target the atmosphere 20 Chapter 3 – Case Studies 20 Case Study I: Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage 23 Case Study II: Fixing the climate with algae? 24 Case Study III: Ocean fertilization: LOHAFEX, Planktos-Haida-Oceaneos 25 Case Study IV: Ocean fertilization: Korea Polar Research Institute 26 Case Study V: Artificial (Ocean) Upwelling in China 27 Case Study VI: The SPICE experiment 28 Case Study VII: SCoPEx: Stratospheric aerosol injection experiment 29 Case Study VIII: Marine Cloud Brightening in Monterey Bay, California 30 Chapter 4 – The Case Against Geoengineering 30 Mega Scale; Unreliable and high-risk; Environmental hazards; Irreversibility; 31 Exacerbate global power imbalances and inequity; Intergenerational injustice; Justification for climate inaction; Carbon profiteering; Convergence of large-scale emerging technologies; 32 Global control; Weaponization; Treaty violation; Diversion of resources, funding and research efforts from real solutions 2 The Big Bad Fix: The Case Against Climate Geoengineering 33 Chapter 5 – Who Is Behind Geoengineering? 33 Old fossils, new frames; The Geoclique 34 Cliques are not good for democracy or science 35 Literature and patents – who owns geoengineering? 36 Research on geoengineering; Multinational research projects 38 National programs 39 The IPCC: normalizing geoengineering? 40 The Climate Merchants 42 War climate: military & geoengineering 43 Conservationists for the Earth... Manipulation 44 Defending Mother Earth: geoengineering and indigenous resistance 46 Chapter 6 – Geoengineering Governance 46 Is it possible to govern geoengineering? The Holy Grail of “negative emissions” 47 A starting point; Geoengineering discussions at the UN 48 Transboundary nature; Research and governance – the chicken and the egg? 49 Is a global consensus possible? Broad societal deliberations must come first 50 Box: A legitimate discussion on geoengineering governance must be... 51 Chapter 7 – The Way Forward 51 A radical realism; The norm is a rejection of geoengineering 52 Maintain and reinforce the moratoria; Stop open-air experiments 53 Work for a ban; Broad societal debates, broad frameworks; Hands Off Mother Earth! 55 Annex 1 – Geoengineering at the United Nations 60 Annex 2 – Non-governmental initiatives on geoengineering governance 62 Endnotes 77 Glossary of Geoengineering Technology Acronyms 77 About the authors - ETC group, Biofuelwatch and Heinrich Böll Foundation ETC Group Biofuelwatch Heinrich Böll Foundation 3 Preface As a rapidly warming world manifests heat waves, We also need sound, socially-just and culturally- floods, droughts and hurricanes, geoengineering appropriate strategies to repay our land-carbon debt by – large-scale manipulation of the Earth’s natural vastly, yet carefully, restoring natural ecosystems. Avoiding efforts to address the root causes of climate systems – is being presented as a strategy to change, and focusing on end-of pipe geoengineering counteract, dilute or delay climate change technologies, is a political choice, not a destiny. It says without disrupting energy- and resource-intensive that it is more acceptable to risk irreparable harm to our economies. Alarmingly, current debates about planet than alter the dominant economic system. It is not this big techno-fix are limited to a small group of a technical or scientific necessity – it is a defence of a self-proclaimed experts reproducing failed status quo that continues to protect the riches of undemocratic worldviews and technocratic, the few. reductionist perspectives. Developing ‘The Big Bad Fix’ expands and updates the 2010 report, countries, indigenous peoples, and local “Geopiracy”. Jointly authored by the ETC Group, Biofuelwatch and the Heinrich Böll communities are excluded and left Avoiding efforts to address Foundation, it offers NGO activists, voiceless. social movements, policy makers, the root causes of climate As this report details, each of the journalists and other change agents a change, and focusing on proposed geoengineering technologies comprehensive overview of the key threatens people and ecosystems. end-of pipe geoengineering actors, technologies and negotiating Holistic assessments of the technologies technologies, is a political fora of geoengineering. It also provides also show that if deployed they are highly choice, not a an analysis and history of the debate, the likely to worsen rather than mitigate the destiny. various interests shaping it, and case studies impacts of global warming. The irreversibility, on the most important technologies and risk of weaponization, and implications for global experiments. It argues for an urgent and immediate power dynamics inherent in large-scale climate ban on the deployment and outdoor testing of climate geoengineering also make it an unacceptable option. In geoengineering, overseen by a robust and accountable 2010, governments in the Global South took the issue to multilateral global governance mechanism. the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and A debate about geoengineering and its governance is achieved a de facto moratorium on geoengineering needed, but it must be a broad, participatory and deployment and outdoor experimentation. transparent debate from the grassroots, grounded in So why are we now seeing an escalating discourse international law, built on the precautionary principle around geoengineering? In short, the “tyranny of and informed by a rigorous understanding of real, urgency” of climate change is being harnessed to push the existing, transformative and just climate policies and debate on geoengineering from academic papers and practices. We need a movement of movements coming computer models to climate policy arenas and – even together to oppose geoengineering as a technofix and false more importantly – to outdoor experiments. solution to the climate crisis and refocus on real changes. There is an urgency, of course. Post-Paris Agreement, A movement that starts with communities and civil governments must acknowledge that traditional, light- society organizations. A movement of movements that touch emission reduction strategies are not enough. We demands Hands Off Mother Earth! need an honest conversation about radical emission 1 December 2017 reduction pathways that transcend mainstream economic thinking. Barbara Unmüßig, President, Heinrich Böll Foundation Pat Mooney, Co-founder, ETC Group Rachel Smolker, Co-Director, Biofuelwatch 4 The Big Bad Fix: The Case Against Climate Geoengineering Chapter 1 Geoengineering: The Emperors’ New Climate A New, Environmental Empire Empire’s Techno-fixes Geoengineering has come to mean large-scale, intentional Miracles once conjured by storytellers and conveyed by human manipulation of climate or Earth systems. Despite the writers of scripture are now the purview of a long history of discussion within military contexts, technologists. We have, in fact, become routinely today geoengineering is less often discussed as a successful at local level ‘miracles’: we can ask a box on our technology of war and more often presented as a risky but coffee table how to dress a wound and to order bandages potentially necessary techno-fix for climate change, a to our door. Sometimes, we can even help the blind see, prudent insurance policy in the event of an imminent the disabled walk and bring the seemingly dead back to climate crisis. This report details the life. And we have expanded our miraculous geoengineering technologies under capabilities beyond the local to the global: consideration and describes the actors The reasons we have learned to fly across oceans and and the fora contemplating and/or