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If we fail to take drastic measures to protect the climate, we will be unable to keep global warming from exceeding the two degrees Celsius target set in the Paris Agreement. Most experts share this opinion. Meanwhile, researchers are investigating different ways to ensure we are still able to reach the goal. Increasingly, technologies are being discussed that can all be summarized with the term “geoengineering.” These include measures known as “direct air capture,” or the filtering of CO2 right out of the surrounding air, or processes such as “solar geoengineering.” The second method encompasses different ways of steering the sun’s rays away from the earth in order to slow the “greenhouse effect” and with it, global warming. Among the approaches discussed, for example, is a technologically challenging one that would install mirrors between the sun and the earth. More feasible are methods to brighten up the clouds in order to enhance their ability to reflect sunlight into space or darken the skies to provide cooling. This is something that’s been observed in ash clouds that come from volcanic eruptions.
All these processes involve making significant interventions in natural processes, the long-term consequences of which are barely foreseeable. Scientists, environmentalists and political decision makers are faced with a dilemma. Geoengineering holds out rapid remedies to the extremes of climate change. But at what price?
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