New ETC Group briefing for delegates at SBSTTA 26 In a wave of “blue carbon” hype, oceans and coastal areas are increasingly pitched as tools to fight global warming. Around the globe dozens of new projects are projected to increase the ocean's capacity to absorb CO2...
Ocean Fertilisation
Marine Geoengineering: Between profits and climate protection, our oceans are becoming an experimental field
This is an extended article of the already published piece in Rundbreif (in German). Nathan Thanki & Serayna Solanki Contact: coordinator@handsoffmotherearth.org In March, the United Nations agreed to a High Seas Treaty aiming to, in the words of Antonio...
Geoengineering Map Update: Carbon markets are a major driver for geoengineering
The Geoengineering Map Update summarises the latest developments on the Geoengineering Monitor Map highlighting new trends for civil society and climate justice movements to follow in their efforts to oppose geoengineering. By Anja Chalmin Critical Updates There is...
Commercialization in geoengineering continues to increase
By Anja Chalmin The Quarterly Review summarises the latest developments on the Geoengineering Monitor Map highlighting emerging trends for civil society and climate justice movements. Key Points - Quarterly Review IV In the last quarter of 2022, the trend continues...
Is a new legal pathway to stopping dangerous marine geoengineering projects on the horizon?
Photo Credit: Linus NylundBy Laura DunnFrom the arctic to the Galapagos, communities have been resisting marine geoengineering projects that threaten their coasts and marine ecosystems around the world. A recent announcement from the London Protocol / London...
Marine Geoengineering – Quarterly Review III (part 2)
Photo Credit: Jeremy BishopBy Anja ChalminThe second part of the third quarterly review of 2022 looks at geoengineering developments on water and on land with a focus on marine projects. Many of the approaches to marine geoengineering involve technologies to...
Geoengineering Updates: Quarterly Review II 2022
By Anja Chalmin The second quarterly review of current developments in geoengineering provides an insight into new geoengineering companies and projects as well as new funding opportunities for geoengineering. The vast majority of new projects and funders are - as...
UN Oceans Conference Side Event: Marine Geoengineering
A growing threat in the name of climate protection - Side event 29 June 1-2:30 pm Lisbon time Marine geoengineering - advanced by industry and some governments in the name of addressing the climate crisis - is a growing threat to marine environments and ecosystems and...
Geoengineering activities in Latin America
Photo 1: A worker lays white paint on the Peruvian Andes in a bid to get water and vegetation to return to the mountain range, © CNNPhoto 2: ‘BioUrban 2.0’ air purification system in Puebla, Mexico on August 7, © AFPPhoto 3: Carbon Capture, Use and Storage Technology...
Geoengineering Threatens Oceans
High-risk geoengineering projects are proceeding in violation of UN moratoria MONTREAL, SYDNEY, UTQIAGVIK, SANTIAGO—On World Oceans Day, members of a global coalition formed by 195 organizations on 45 countries are raising the alarm about the threat of geoengineering...
Artificial Upwelling: current efforts and anticipated impacts of intermingling the ocean
by Anja Chalmin The US-based Climate Foundation revealed plans to intermingle ocean water layers in Australian and Philippine coastal waters with the aim of sequestering atmospheric carbon as well as stimulating the growth of phytoplankton and macroalgae,...
Rotterdam’s Carbon Capture, India’s Cloud Seeding and other updates: August 2019
Delayed and expanding projects, new initiatives and revivals by Anja Chalmin Revived Geoengineering Projects The Port of Rotterdam announced the start of Porthos, a joint project with EBN and Gasunie. Porthos stands for “Port Of Rotterdam CO₂ Transport...
Ice on Fire makes dangerous concessions to techno-fix fantasies
By promoting high-risk technologies as “solutions”, DiCaprio’s new film contributes to derailing serious climate efforts
Geoengineering Developments: Carbon Capture, Venture Capital and Would-be Megaprojects
A great variety of climate geoengineering projects have been driven forward throughout the past months, while questions remain about their side effects and long-term impacts.
Marine Geoengineering: a technofix for the climate? (video)
Large-scale technological interventions to “fix” the climate crisis are moving up on the political agenda. Some climate scientists are now proposing geoengineering interventions on land to halt global warming - most prominently BECCS (Bio-Energy with Carbon Capture...
Pirates of the Pacific
by Silvia Ribeiro The pirates of marine geoengineering are not giving up easily. Although there is a UN moratorium on ocean fertilisation, the company Oceaneos wants to experiment with this risky technology in Chile and Peru, despite not having permission from the...
The Big Bad Fix
ETC Group, BiofuelWatch and Heinrich Boell Foundation present a comprehensive argument against geoengineering in this report. Click here to download the full report (pdf) As a rapidly warming world manifests heat waves, floods, droughts and hurricanes, geoengineering...
Climate Change, Smoke and Mirrors
For the past decade, a small but growing group of governments and scientists, the majority from the most powerful and most climate-polluting countries in the world, has been pushing for political consideration of geoengineering, the deliberate large-scale...
UN to extend freeze on climate change geoengineering
Update to this article: The plenary of the COP 13 adopted the decision described below on Friday 9th December By Ed King (Climate Home) Draft documents suggest countries will agree to further ban on large-scale climate techno-fixes, warning risks of damage to...
Climate Change Policy and The Super-Hero Syndrome
by Roger Boyd (Resilience) There is a genre of Hollywood “feel-good” disaster movie, where everything seems nearly hopeless until the end, and then suddenly, many times against all hope, the super-hero (or super-heroes) saves the day. Whether it be human heroes that...
Seeds of doubt over iron boost for algae
by Alex Kirby (Climate News Network) New research suggests that fertilising oceans with iron to increase the growth of algae that absorb carbon dioxide is not the hoped-for answer to reducing global warming. LONDON, 28 January, 2016 – One keenly-argued possible way of...
Recklessly playing God with the planet
A government-sponsored scientific panel called for more research on geoengineering — here’s why we shouldn’t even consider it by Shannon Hall (ScienceLine) Geoengineering — that wild and grandiose idea that suggests we could offset and even reverse the alarming...
Geoengineering is no place for corporate profit making
There is no shortage of ideas from business to save the environment – the problem is when they want to make a fast buck by Clive Hamilton (Guardian) “Save the world and make a little cash on the side.” That’s the motto of Russ George, the colourful entrepreneur behind...
Another study reveals dangers of geoengineering through ‘iron fertilisation’
Yet another study questions shows how dangerously simplistic the assumption that dumping iron filements into oceans will sequester carbon is. This latest study, by Ellery D. Ingall et al, published in Nature Communications, looks at a particular type of...