A Matter of Scale: Regional Climate Engineering and the Shortfalls of Multinational Governance
Debates over climate engineering governance tend to assume this technology is an all-or-nothing affair that produces inherently global effects which intentionally can reachany nation or population. With the emergence of possible regional climate engineering methods that seek to limit their effects to relatively local areas, this governance debate may find itself left behind in some instances by disruptively novel technological options. If so, regional climate engineering may fit better under a combination of local transnational mechanisms and bilateral treaties rather than the existing broad-scale multinational frameworks available under multilateral treaties such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The growing interest in climate engineering strategies has sparked a fierce debate over the best ways to govern research, deployment and legal responsibilities for possible damages caused by those technologies. These debates often share a common premise: climate engineering systems will strive to cause global effects that could potentially and unexpectedly injure nations and populations in far-flung and vulnerable locations. Given this assumption, most proposals to regulate or control climate engineering have focused on (i) crafting multilateral agreements to impose binding obligations on a broad community of consenting governments, (ii) establishing principles of international law to determine liability for damages prior to engaging in any climate engineering activity, and (iii) delineating duties under international human rights law to limit research or activities that would harm protected indigenous populations or ecological resources.
Technology, however, may soon outstrip the implicit assumptions of the current debate. Rather than requiring the use of solar radiation management strategies or carbon reduction techniques to affect planetary surface temperatures or atmospheric stocks of greenhouse gases, new climate engineering approaches might allow attempted alterations of climate on a regional level. For example, climate engineering technologies on this scale potentially could seek to protect especially vulnerable polar regions or preserve precipitation cycles that supply critical water supplies over subcontinental or regional areas. Notably, while these techniques would focus on creating climate effects within a particular region, this local focus would not preclude the possibility of unanticipated consequences outside the targeted region. While limited goals and scope of regional climate engineering will likely pose difficulties for emerging climate governance frameworks suited for global efforts, this focused approach may open new ways to regulate climate engineering research through a cumulative bottom-up governance approach that would rely on networks of regional treaties, agreements and resolutions rather than a sweeping international convention.
| Copyright: | © Lexxion Verlagsgesellschaft mbH | |
| Quelle: | Issue 03/2013 (September 2013) | |
| Seiten: | 9 | |
| Preis inkl. MwSt.: | € 41,65 | |
| Autor: | Prof. Dr. Tracy D. Hester  | |
| Artikel weiterleiten | In den Warenkorb legen
| Artikel kommentieren |
Diese Fachartikel könnten Sie auch interessieren:
Privatisation and De-globalisation of the Climate
© Lexxion Verlagsgesellschaft mbH (9/2013)
This paper considers the issues raised by creating market incentives for private industry to engage in geoengineering. It argues that the benefits could include increased innovation and creativity in dealing with climate-related problems, and that the direct environmental risks are probably manageable. However, the political consequences are potentially destabilising and hard to predict. The creation of diffuse vested commercial interests may obstruct the achievement of the common good, as well as leading to global climate concerns being partially transformed into local weather concerns. While the commodification of the climate fits the long-term trend of increasing human management of the natural world, it is a step of alarming size and possibly hard to reverse.
Regulating Geoengineering in International Environmental Law
© Lexxion Verlagsgesellschaft mbH (9/2013)
Geoengineering can be viewed in two ways: as a potential cause for further environmental harm or as an option for addressing climate change in addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. So far, the existing legal response in multilateral environmental agreements has been in the former domain. This article shows that this approach does not necessarily provide comprehensive legal regulation of geoengineering as it appears to leave many governance and regulatory gaps. At the same time, developing a new legal instrument on geoengineering does not seem to be feasible for a number of political and other reasons. Therefore, we propose that the most appropriate option for the time being would be to continue with the current approach but enhance inter-regime cooperation and interaction. The article discusses possible formats for such regime cooperation.
A Prognosis, and Perhaps a Plan, for Geoengineering Governance
© Lexxion Verlagsgesellschaft mbH (9/2013)
The idea of global climate engineering exists, but there are no global institutions capable of making legitimate choices about deploying and managing such an intervention. On the other hand, sub-global regions, mostly individual countries could, and in fact currently do, deploy smaller interventions against natural disasters without global decision-making. If governments actively plan to cooperate on developing and managing interventions to avoid, redirect or modify severe weather natural disasters related to climate change they may along the way learn about how to set intervention goals, make intervention choices, assess outcomes of the intervention and adapt the interventions accordingly. These crucial deliberation and management skills could grow as the interventions grow in response to more severe impacts. Governments should plan to use collaboration on natural disasters as a vehicle for developing the institutional capacity to manage the global climate.
Climate Engineering Research: A Precautionary Response to Climate Change?
© Lexxion Verlagsgesellschaft mbH (6/2013)
In the face of dire forecasts for anthropogenic climate change, climate engineering is increasingly discussed as a possible additional set of responses to reduce climate change’s threat. These proposals have been controversial, in part because they - like climate change itself - pose uncertain risks to the environment and human well-being. Under these challenging circumstances of potential catastrophe and risk-risk trade-off, it is initially unclear to what extent precaution is applicable. We examine what precautionis and is not, and make a prima facie case that climate engineering may provide means to reduce climate risks. When precaution is applied to the currently pertinent matter of small to moderate scale climate engineering field tests, we conclude that precaution encourages them, despite their potential risks.
Municipal Solid Waste bio-drying eco-balance and Kyoto protocol
© Wasteconsult International (6/2009)
Bio-drying is a process aimed to Refuse Derived Fuel generation through water evaporation and post-treatment of selection. This option allows avoiding direct combustion of waste and opens to alternative strategies as co-combustion in thermal power plants where the efficiency of electricity generation could be higher than the one of conventional
incinerators. The present paper analyses in details a few aspects related to CO2 balances for bio-drying in order to give a contribution to a correct understanding of the process.
Keywords:
Bio-drying, CO2, emissions, Kyoto Protocol, MSW, RDF
1 Introduction
2 Methods
3 Results and discussion
4 Conclusions
