Governing Solar Geoengineering at Planetary Scale: Pipe Dream or Possibility?

Abstract

Solar geoengineering is being suggested by some scientists as a partial solution to the climate crisis. However, these hypothetical technologies to reflect parts of incoming sunlight back out into space pose significant governance challenges, due to their ecological risks, planetary scale, and long-term consequences. This review examines the literature on solar geoengineering governance since 2020, identifying three strands of debate. The first explores emerging research governance and institutional arrangements for potential future deployment. The second, critical, strand focuses instead on institutional pathways to prohibit such technologies. A third strand analyzes the debate itself, including through the lens of science and technology studies. While proposals for solar geoengineering are developed by small groups of researchers in industrialized countries, opposition is growing in the Global South, with governments from Africa and the Pacific calling for an international nonuse agreement. This growing resistance from vulnerable nations raises pressing moral and political questions about continuing research amid mounting global dissent.