The politics of geoengineering

In an interview this week, John Holdren, Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the White House, indicated that “the Obama administration is discussing radical technologies to cool Earth's air.” They probably are talking about it, but it was a huge mistake for Holdren to mention so publicly, for three reasons.

The "radical technologies" that Holdren references are collectively known as geoengineering. In a nutshell, geoengineers propose to purposefully manipulate the environment to counteract the effects of global warming. The idea has gained traction as a relatively painless way to fight climate change without taxing carbon or raising the cost of doing business. However, there is disagreement over whether it is actually possible and whether it risks making things much worse. Modern climate science is still relatively primitive – there are many things that we simply don’t yet understand. Geoengineering is the scientific equivalent of a Hail Mary pass.

By acknowledging it as a viable option, Holdren risks undermining international negotiations on combating climate change. Currently, the best solution available to climate change is to reduce carbon emissions, most commonly through some form of cap-and-trade system. But by pricing carbon, you raise the cost of goods and services at least in the short run. This is a tough enough pill to swallow, and geoengineering gives naysayers more ammunition to lobby against it. Negotiations are going to be hard enough as is – remember that it’s been seven torturous years of Doha Round negotiations that would produce a net economic gain, and we’re still not done.

Finally, geoengineering does not eliminate international coordination challenges. As a global problem, climate change requires a global solution. There are significant collective action problems to address. But even if we decide to geoengineer our way out of this mess, these problems will remain. Who gets to pick which geoengineering scheme gets used (there are many)? What if different nations choose to go forward with different geoengineering strategies? And most importantly, who pays for it?

I am somewhat of an international cooperation sceptic, and I worry that the global community won’t reach a consensus on climate change. For that reason, President Obama really ought to be exploring every contingency plan, geoengineering included.

But he and his team need to keep it to themselves.