TY - JOUR

T1 - Clash of Geofutures and the Remaking of Planetary Order

T2 - Faultlines underlying Conflicts over Geoengineering Governance

AU - McLaren, Duncan

AU - Corry, Olaf

PY - 2021/1/23

Y1 - 2021/1/23

N2 - Climate engineering (geoengineering) is rising up the global policy agenda, partly because international divisions pose deep challenges to collective climate mitigation. However, geoengineering is similarly subject to clashing interests, knowledge-tradi- tions and geopolitics. Modelling and technical assessments of geoengineering are facilitated by assumptions of a single global planner (or some as yet unspecified rational governance), but the practicality of international governance remains mostly spec- ulative. Using evidence gathered from state delegates, climate activists and modellers, we reveal three underlying and clash- ing ‘geofutures’: an idealised understanding of governable geoengineering that abstracts from technical and political realities; a situated understanding of geoengineering emphasising power hierarchies in world order; and a pragmatist precautionary understanding emerging in spaces of negotiation such as UN Environment Assembly (UNEA). Set in the wider historical con- text of climate politics, the failure to agree even to a study of geoengineering at UNEA indicates underlying obstacles to glo- bal rules and institutions for geoengineering posed by divergent interests and underlying epistemic and political differences. Technology assessments should recognise that geoengineering will not be exempt from international fractures; that deploy- ment of geoengineering through imposition is a serious risk; and that contestations over geofutures pertain, not only to cli- mate policy, but also the future of planetary order.

AB - Climate engineering (geoengineering) is rising up the global policy agenda, partly because international divisions pose deep challenges to collective climate mitigation. However, geoengineering is similarly subject to clashing interests, knowledge-tradi- tions and geopolitics. Modelling and technical assessments of geoengineering are facilitated by assumptions of a single global planner (or some as yet unspecified rational governance), but the practicality of international governance remains mostly spec- ulative. Using evidence gathered from state delegates, climate activists and modellers, we reveal three underlying and clash- ing ‘geofutures’: an idealised understanding of governable geoengineering that abstracts from technical and political realities; a situated understanding of geoengineering emphasising power hierarchies in world order; and a pragmatist precautionary understanding emerging in spaces of negotiation such as UN Environment Assembly (UNEA). Set in the wider historical con- text of climate politics, the failure to agree even to a study of geoengineering at UNEA indicates underlying obstacles to glo- bal rules and institutions for geoengineering posed by divergent interests and underlying epistemic and political differences. Technology assessments should recognise that geoengineering will not be exempt from international fractures; that deploy- ment of geoengineering through imposition is a serious risk; and that contestations over geofutures pertain, not only to cli- mate policy, but also the future of planetary order.

U2 - https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12863

DO - https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12863

M3 - Journal article

VL - 12

SP - 20

EP - 33

JO - Global Policy

JF - Global Policy

SN - 1758-5880

IS - S1

ER -