Ethics and Governance Theme Abstract Proposal: Technology Analogs for the Governance of Solar Geoengineering

There have been regular and increasingly insistent calls for the (polycentric) governance of climate interventions including solar geoengineering – especially stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI). However, it is unclear exactly how governance should be implemented given collective ethical and moral dilemmas, as well as problems of equity and democratic participation in cases of global impacts.

While some are calling for novel governance regimes, this ignores the problem of bureaucratic inertia. Governments and other governance organizations rarely innovate and are more likely to modify or reuse existing tools to govern new issues, as they emerge. Knowing of this path dependency of governance, by studying contemporary and historical governance of analogous technologies, it may be possible to develop better governance of solar geoengineering by better understanding what tools are most likely to be used.

Key questions of this research include what are good analogs for a complex technology like solar geoengineering, and how have those analogs been governed by different levels of governance (through a polycentric governance lens)? By analyzing a small number of analogs through international, national, subnational, and transnational governance regimes – and the interplay between these regimes – lessons can be learned and potentially applied to develop a comprehensive anticipatory solar geoengineering governance regime. Preliminary analogs include genetically modified organisms, weather modification, satellites, fertilizer, whaling, and nuclear technologies.