Description
An increasingly urgent aspect of the international politics of climate change is the governance of large-scale climate interventions such as solar geoengineering. This includes proposals for extensive Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI), in which reflective aerosols are injected into the lower stratosphere to reduce solar radiation and cool global temperatures. SAI is gaining momentum as a potential response to the growing climate crisis but will have serious global consequences, which will depend on the political decisions about SAI use and governance. There is need for more research examining the global implications of this technology in terms of the international political context in which it is being developed. References to nuclear governance in solar geoengineering literature currently serve to provide political reassurance that it will be possible to design effective global governance mechanisms. However, comparisons between the two technologies are based on a partial reading of both historical and contemporary nuclear governance that minimises or ignores persistent challenges in nuclear governance to justify and legitimise solar geoengineering. This paper will examine the historical and contemporary linkages between two potentially planet-altering technologies that present substantial geopolitical and security concerns and demand effective global governance.
