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Dear
subscribers,
Welcome to the
March edition of the
Geoengineering Monitor newsletter! In it we
cover:
Pollution is not a climate solution:
Victory for common
sense declared at UNEA-6 as Global South
countries win the battle for
precaution over solar geoengineering
In the early
hours of the morning
of the 29th February efforts towards a Solar
Geoengineering Non-Use
Agreement took a leap forward as Swiss delegates
were forced to
withdraw (read also in
Spanish) their resolution on solar geoengineering. The resolution
called for the establishment of an "expert
group" on Solar Radiation
Management (SRM) technologies and risked
beginning the process of
legitimising solar geoengineering within UN
spaces. African countries
in particular led calls for the Assembly to
back a precautionary
approach to geoengineering, as has already
been established by the
Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and
other UN
bodies.
Civil society
was also very much at
the heart of opposition to the resolution, and
the HOME! Alliance
published a briefing for
delegates (in English, Spanish and French) in the run-up to the Assembly. The HOME Africa working group
on Geoengineering also published a Policy
Brief which was
distributed to African
delegates.
Mfoniso Antia,
HOMEF Program Manager and HOME! Africa Working
Group, said of the
negotiations: "Even if
solar geoengineering is only deployed over
the northern hemisphere, it
will disrupt local and regional weather
patterns and further imbalance
the climate, with potentially catastrophic
effects for Africa,
including on water availability and food
production. I'm happy for
Africa's leadership on geoengineering at
UNEA-6, which builds on the
African Ministerial Conference on the
Environments decision on the
non-use of solar geoengineering
technologies."
Barbara Ntambirweki, ETC Group and African Technology Assessment Platform (AfriTAP)
added: "The Africa Group
at
UNEA-6 led powerful opposition to
Switzerland's solar geoengineering
resolution-withdrawn this morning-forming
the basis for future efforts
towards a non-use agreement on solar
geoengineering
internationally."
Read more
on this issue:
A solar
geoengineering Trojan horse at
UNEA-6 (ETC
Group); Climate
Vulnerable Nations Reject US-led
Push for Solar Geoengineering at UNEA-6 (CIEL).
Technology reviews find that carbon
capture schemes are
still little more than a distraction from the
urgent action required
on climate change
Our most recent
Geoengineering Map updates were
published as a three-part
series looking at schemes based on carbon
capture: Carbon Capture and
Storage
(CCS), Carbon Capture Use
and Storage
(CCUS) and Direct Air Capture
(DAC). These reviews are
the result of hundreds
of updates to the Geoengineering Map, and are
an up-to-date,
big-picture view on the current status of
these technologies and their
flagship projects.
The common
themes running
throughout the updates include the fact that
carbon capture
technologies are still extremely power-hungry
and carbon-intensive,
resulting in significant new emissions purely
through the process of
capturing carbon. Storage and use are also
highly uncertain and
fraught with risks, with most projects unable
to guarantee that the
carbon will stay where it is put, or putting
carbon into short-lived
products that will re-release it almost
immediately. Another common
theme is the extent to which these projects
are dependent on huge
amounts of public finance and subsidies, and
increasingly also on
selling carbon credits, which has been shown
to be a deeply flawed
climate mitigation approach.
Key updates
include:
Look out
for our upcoming
updates on marine geoengineering, due to be
published later this
month.
Analysis on geoengineering at COP 28
and its implications
for future negotiations
In our last
newsletter we covered
the fact that geoengineering featured more
prominently at COP28 than
at any other prior COP, with over 80
pro-geoengineering side events
taking place. This showed the extent to which
UNFCCC has become a
lobbying target for geoengineering proponents.
Since then, more
important analysis has been published on the
subject.
In its post-COP
blog, ETC Group
describes how "The document containing the recent conclusions from the UN
climate change conference in the United Arab
Emirates (COP 28) is an
egregious example of an official statement
crafted to appear to be
addressing a crucial problem, whilst
skilfully disguising the fact
that many decisions taken will actually
worsen that problem. A
perverse narrative has been forced through,
hiding a complete lack of
real action." The article
discusses how a little-understood loophole in
recent texts calls for
"climate neutrality" or "net zero" by 2050,
rather than real emissions
reductions. This in theory even allows
greenhouse gas emissions to
increase if they are
"compensated" for or "offset"
through carbon markets, and/or by removing
carbon from the atmosphere,
which would include Carbon Dioxide Removal
geoengineering schemes such
as Bioenergy with CCS (BECCS) and DAC.
Carol Bardi,
coordinator of the
Solar Geoengineering Non-Use Agreement
Initiative, has also looked at how the
solar geoengineering
debate has taken root within UNFCCC, and describes in a
recent article that:
"While
civil society
constituencies actively rejected solar
geoengineering as a climate
policy option at COP 28, an alternative
discourse is taking shape in a
few Global North institutions, pushed by a
relatively small group of
scientists and industry lobbyists funded by
Silicon Valley
billionaires and venture capitalists. The
narrative here is that we
might be able "to buy time" to realize the
more transformative changes
needed by artificially cooling the planet
through
SRM." The article,
published by The Heinrich Boll Foundation,
outlines how the alarming
number of side events by SRM advocates in
Dubai signalled the start of
a serious push within the climate negotiations
by solar geoengineering
proponents, and that civil society needs to be
ready to counter even
more pro-SRM lobbying at COP29.
Geoengineering in the news
Legal Planet: The global
conversation about solar
geoengineering just changed at the UN
Environment Assembly. Here's
how.
Financial
Times: UN environment
chief warns on lack of
climate engineering controls
EuroNews: Sun blocking
technologies a no-go for now
after UN countries voice serious concerns
Devex: Solar
Geoengineering rejected at 6th UN
Environment Assembly
BNN: Global Push
Against Solar Geoengineering:
UNEA-6 Halts Risky Climate Fixes
The Guardian: Switzerland calls
on UN to explore
possibility of solar geoengineering
Nation: UNEA-6: Countries
reject solar engineering
as way to combat climate change
Cambridge
University Press,
Transnational Environmental Law: Towards a Non-Use
Regime on Solar
Geoengineering: Lessons from International
Law and
Governance
Reuters: Carbon capture
tech a 'complete falsehood',
says Fortescue Metals chairman
DeSmog: Drax Wants to
Capture State Subsidies, Not
Carbon
The Next Web: World's largest
carbon capture plant is UK's
'next big white elephant'
The Guardian: Drax gets go-ahead
for carbon capture
project at estimated 40bn cost to
bill-payers
.coda: In the Swedish
Arctic, a battle for the
climate rages
The Wave: Why geoengineering
is a human rights
nightmare
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