Solar Geoengineering’s Brave New World: Thoughts on the Governance of an Unprecedented Technology

Scott Barrett

Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 2014, vol. 8, issue 2, 249-269

Abstract: Due to the failure of international efforts to limit atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, consideration is now being given to solar geoengineering—a deliberate intervention to limit global warming without altering the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases. In contrast to emission cuts, geoengineering is expected to be cheap, quick to lower temperature, and feasible through the use of a single intervention. However, geoengineering is an imperfect substitute for emission reductions and will likely have undesirable side effects, only some of which can be anticipated before geoengineering is deployed. Most importantly, because geoengineering can be undertaken unilaterally, it creates issues of governance: Who gets to decide if, when, and how geoengineering should be attempted? This article provides an introduction to the key issues surrounding the governance of this unprecedented technology. (JEL: Q54, F53, K33)

Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/reep/reu011 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:renvpo:v:8:y:2014:i:2:p:249-269.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Environmental Economics and Policy is currently edited by Robert Stavins

More articles in Review of Environmental Economics and Policy from Association of Environmental and Resource Economists Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().