One of the biggest concerns of many countries when it comes to climate change is national security. This doesn’t just mean wars. Risks to food, energy and water resources, such as climate-induced migration, are also national security issues.
Can climate engineering help reduce the national security risks of climate change, or will it make things worse? It’s not easy to answer this question, but researchers like us who study climate change and national security have some ideas about the risks ahead.
The big problem of climate change
To understand what climate engineering might look like in the future, let’s first talk about why a country might want to try it.
Since the industrial revolution, humans have released approximately 1.74 trillion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, largely by burning fossil fuels. This carbon dioxide traps heat, warming the planet.
One of the most important things we can do is stop releasing carbon into the atmosphere. But this will not improve the situation quickly because carbon remains in the atmosphere for centuries. Reducing emissions will prevent things from getting worse.
Countries can pull and trap carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through a process called carbon dioxide removal. Currently, carbon dioxide removal projects, including growing trees and direct air capture devices, pull approximately 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere annually.
But humans currently release more than 37 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually through fossil fuel use and industry. As long as the amount added is greater than the amount removed, droughts, floods, hurricanes, heat waves, and sea level rise, among many other consequences of climate change, will continue to worsen.
It may take a long time to reach “net zero” emissions, the point at which humans do not increase greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. Climate engineering can help in the meantime.
Who can try climate engineering and how?
Various government research arms are already working on scenarios, looking at who might decide to do climate engineering and how.
Climate engineering is expected to be inexpensive compared to the cost of ending greenhouse gas emissions. But it would still cost billions of dollars and take years to develop and build a fleet of aircraft that would carry megatons of reflective particles into the stratosphere each year. Any billionaire considering such a venture would quickly run out of money, contrary to what science fiction suggests.
However, a single country or a coalition of countries witnessing the harms of climate change may decide to initiate climate engineering on its own, making a cost and geopolitical calculation.
This is called the “free rider” problem; This means that a country with at least moderate wealth can unilaterally influence the world’s climate.
For example, countries with increasingly dangerous heat waves may want to induce cooling, or countries dependent on monsoons may want to restore some of the reliability disrupted by climate change. Australia is currently investigating the feasibility of rapidly cooling the Great Barrier Reef to prevent its demise.
Creating risks for neighbors raises conflict alert
The climate does not respect national borders. Therefore, a climate engineering project in one country is likely to affect temperatures and precipitation in neighboring countries. This can be good or bad for crops, water resources and flood risk. It can also lead to widespread undesirable consequences.
Some studies suggest that a moderate amount of climate engineering would likely have broader benefits compared to climate change. However, not every country will be affected in the same way.
Once climate engineering is in place, countries may be more likely to blame climate engineering for extreme events such as hurricanes, floods, and droughts, regardless of the evidence.
Climate engineering can lead to conflicts between countries, leading to sanctions and compensation claims. Climate change can leave the poorest regions most vulnerable to harm, and climate engineering should not exacerbate this harm. Some countries will benefit from climate engineering and thus be more resilient to geopolitical strife, while others will suffer and therefore be more vulnerable.
No one has yet conducted large-scale climate engineering, which means most information about its effects is based on climate models. But while these models are excellent tools for studying the climate system, they are not very good at answering questions about geopolitics and conflict. Moreover, the physical effects of climate engineering depend on who does it and what they do.
What’s next?
For now, there are more questions than answers about climate engineering. It’s hard to say whether climate engineering will create more conflict or ease international tensions by reducing climate change.
But international decisions on climate engineering will likely come soon. At the United Nations Environment Assembly in March 2024, African countries called for a moratorium on climate engineering and demanded that all precautions be taken. Other countries, including the United States, have pushed for the establishment of a formal scientific group to examine the risks and benefits before making any decisions.
Climate engineering can be part of a just solution to climate change. But it also carries risks. Simply put, climate engineering is a technology that cannot be ignored, but more research is needed so policymakers can make informed decisions.
This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent, nonprofit news organization providing facts and analysis to help you understand our complex world.
Written by: Ben Kravitz, Indiana University and Tyler Felgenhauer, Duke University.
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Ben Kravitz receives funding for this work from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Science Foundation.
Tyler Felgenhauer receives funding for this work from the National Science Foundation and Resources for the Future.