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Governance of the Deployment of Solar Geoengineering governance of the deployment of solar geoengineering HARVARD PROJECT ON CLIMATE AGREEMENTS With the support of – and in collaboration with Harvard’s Solar Geoengineering Research Program FEBRUARY 2019 Governance of the Deployment of Solar Geoengineering Harvard Project on Climate Agreements February 2019 acknowledgements This volume is based in part on a workshop organized and hosted by the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements in Cambridge, Massachusetts on September 27–28, 2018. The Harvard Project gratefully acknowledges Harvard’s Solar Geoengineering Research Program for major support for the workshop and the preparation of this volume of briefs. The Harvard Project on Climate Agreements is also grateful for programmatic support to the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School – and for recent funding for other projects from the Harvard University Climate Change Solutions Fund, Harvard Global Institute, the Harvard University Center for the Environment, Enel Founda- tion, Christopher P. Kaneb (Harvard AB 1990), and BP. Previous sponsors of the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements include: the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard Kennedy School, ClimateWorks Founda- tion, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Foundation, the Qatar National Food Security Programme, the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), and Shell. The closely affiliated, University-wide Harvard Environmental Economics Program receives addi- tional support from the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard Kennedy School, the Enel Endowment for Environmental Economics at Harvard University, and Chevron Services Company. citation information Harvard Project on Climate Agreements. “Governance of the Deployment of Solar Geoengi- neering.” Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, February 2019. The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of Harvard Kennedy School or of Harvard University. Discussion Papers have not under- gone formal review and approval. Such papers are intended to elicit feedback and to encourage debate on important public policy challenges. Copyright belongs to the authors. Papers may be downloaded for personal use only. table of contents Introduction Robert N. Stavins, 1 Robert C. Stowe Compilation of Key Points 5 Background and Motivation for the Volume The Science and Technology of Solar Geoengineering: A David Keith, 19 Compact Summary Peter Irvine Why Think About Geoengineering Now? Time is Much John P. Holdren 27 Shorter than Most Think Scenarios for Solar Geoengineering Deployment Some Thoughts on Solar Geoengineering Governance Scott Barrett 33 Evaluating Solar Geoengineering Deployment Scenarios Joshua Horton 37 Governing the Deployment of Geoengineering: Institutions, David G. Victor 41 Preparedness, and the Problem of Rogue Actors Thinking About SG – An Economic Perspective Martin L. Weitzman 45 Insights from other International Governance Regimes Governance of Solar Geoengineering: Learning from Nuclear Matthew Bunn 51 Regimes Notes on Insights from Other Regimes: Cyber Joseph S. Nye 55 Is There Nothing New under the Sun? Analogs for the Jesse L. Reynolds 61 Governance of Solar Geoengineering Generating and Managing International Conflict How Geoengineering can Produce a “Tug-of-War” over the Muhammet Bas, 67 Climate Aseem Mahajan Monitoring and Verifying the Deployment of Solar Sébastien Philippe 71 Geoengineering Criteria for Decision Assessing Solar Geoengineering – What, Who, and How? Matthias Honegger 77 Solar Geoengineering Deployment: Governance Criteria for a Sheila Jasanoff 81 Distributed Technological System Some Distinctions for Thinking about the Governance of Lucas Stanczyk 85 Solar Geoengineering Risk and Uncertainty Risk Governance and the Strategic Role of Uncertainty Daniel Heyen 91 The Challenge of Reconciling Global Temperature Targets with Kate Ricke 95 the Prospect of Solar Geoengineering Solar Geoengineering and Compensation for Harms Stefan Schäfer 99 An Economist’s View on Solar Geoengineering Governance James H. Stock 103 under Uncertainty The Implications of Uncertainty and Ignorance for Solar Richard J. Zeckhauser, 107 Geoengineering Gernot Wagner Legal Dimensions of Solar Geoengineering Governance Solar Geoengineering: Hard Issues and the Limits of Susan Biniaz 115 Environmental Principles Solar Geoengineering and International Law Daniel Bodansky 119 The Relevance of the Climate Change Regime to Governance Albert Lin 125 of Solar Geoengineering Public Perceptions of Solar Geoengineering Public Perceptions of Solar Geoengineering with Implications Dustin Tingley 131 for Governance Moral Hazard and Solar Geoengineering Gernot Wagner, 135 Christine Merk Insights from Solar Geoengineering Governance Initiatives Building a Governance Foundation for Solar Geoengineering Sikina Jinnah 143 Deployment The Road to Solar Geoengineering Governance Janos Pasztor 149 Biographies 153 Workshop Agenda and Participants 160 introduction Solar geoengineering (SG) refers to the deliberate alteration of the earth’s radiative balance in order to reduce the risks attributed to the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The method most commonly discussed as technically plausible and potentially effective involves adding aerosols to the lower stratosphere, where they would reflect some (~1%) incoming sunlight back to space. This type of SG – and possibly some others – are associated with incentive structures that are the inverse of those for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. The latter is a global commons problem, the structure of which requires cooperation at the highest jurisdictional level (that is, interna- tional cooperation) in order to advance mitigation adequately. It has been challenging to design and implement institutions and agreements to support such multilateral cooperation. In contrast, certain types of SG can – in principle – be implemented effectively at relatively low financial cost – low enough to be borne by small states or non-state entities acting on their own. The impacts of such action, however, might be substantial, at regional or even global scales. These could include the intended beneficial effect – decreased global average surface tempera- ture – plus other, potentially adverse side effects. Given the incentive structure associated with SG, its potentially substantial impacts, and the uncertainty (of various kinds) surrounding it, the governance of SG deployment will also be difficult – though the challenges will be quite differ- ent from those associated with encouraging emissions reduction. With this in mind, in September 2018, the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements hosted a workshop on “Governance of the Deployment of Solar Geoengineering,” with collaboration and support from Harvard’s Solar Geoengineering Research Program (HSGRP).1 Participants included 26 leading academic researchers addressing the workshop’s topic – as well as scholars who had considered the governance of other international regimes that might provide lessons and insights. The briefs in this volume are based in large part on presentations by the authors at the workshop.2 The volume begins with a brief by David Keith, Faculty Director of HSGRP, and Peter Irvine, providing some essential scientific and engineering background on SG. John Holdren’s brief then reviews the current and projected impacts of climate change. He argues that because climate change will have very significant negative impacts upon the environment, society, and global economy, it is only a matter of time before nation states and possibly other actors attempt to deploy SG. It is important, he concludes, to have designed effective governance in advance. 1 https://geoengineering.environment.harvard.edu 2 Information about the workshop, including most presentations, is available here: www.belfercenter.org/publication/harvard-project- conducts-research-workshop-governance-solar-geoengineering. The workshop and this volume focus on SG deployment, though a few briefs highlight the close relationship between deployment and natural-scientific and engineering research on SG. HARVARD PROJECT ON CLIMATE AGREEMENTS » 1 The briefs that follow are in topical categories.3 The first set of four, by Scott Barrett, Joshua Horton, David Victor, and Martin Weitzman, employ scenarios to explore how SG deployment might be governed, all with a view to enhancing cooperation and avoiding conflict. Of the four, Weitzman take a somewhat different methodological approach, presenting an economic analysis of the incentive structure associated with SG deployment (as described briefly above) and then conducting a thought experiment – or stylized scenario – to explore how cooperation on SG deployment might emerge. The second set of three briefs provide insights into SG governance drawn from other interna- tional governance regimes. Matthew Bunn details the specific requirements for effective SG governance and reviews potential lessons from the nuclear non-proliferation regime. Joseph Nye focuses on the emerging international regime for governing cyber security. Jesse Reynolds draws insights from a number of international regimes, including some focused on governance of technologies. The following two briefs examine SG with specific reference to international security. Bas and Mahajan analyze the potential dynamics of “counter-geoengineering” (as did Barrett earlier).
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