Chairs: Ina Möller (Wageningen University and Research, Netherlands) and Kevin Surprise (Mount Holyoke College, US)
The Geoengineering Working Group of the Climate Social Science Network brings together scholars and others concerned with all aspects of the politics, power relations, and justice implications of geoengineering. Geoengineering – a broad and contested term – refers to technological interventions that could slow global climate change by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (carbon removal), or blocking incoming sunlight (solar radiation management). These technologies pose a range of novel questions for climate policy and climate justice. They have the potential to reduce some of the worst consequences of climate change, yet could also allow countries with high carbon emissions, major corporate polluters, and wealthy global consumers to avoid climate action and perpetuate business-as-usual. This working group aims to analyze and challenge the ways in which geoengineering technologies are being or could be deployed to enable climate delay and obstruction. Key research questions include: