Anika Begay
After years of legwork, Harvard researchers have scrapped plans to test a controversial theory for cooling the planet by sending sunlight-reflecting particles into the atmosphere. Now, members of an independent advisory panel tasked with addressing ethical and safety concerns are sharing what they learned from the ill-fated project.
A political analysis published in the magazine Science on Friday stresses the importance of talking to people on the ground before launching an experiment, especially one with potentially planet-altering consequences. The document echoes recent calls for policies to protect against unwanted side effects.
Until recently, the idea of reflecting sunlight back into space to combat global warming, a process called solar geoengineering, seemed firmly rooted in science fiction. But as the climate crisis worsened, the idea began to move from the fringes of academic research into more serious debate.
“Public involvement is necessary”
Some researchers and their Silicon Valley backers want to test the theory. And time is running out to establish rules for how to conduct those experiments responsibly, which could help determine whether solar geoengineering will do more harm than good.
“One of the key messages from this is that public engagement is necessary even when you don’t think the impact of the experiment will be felt in a real, concrete, real-time way. This problem has such a long tail and has such deep meaning to so many people,” says Sikina Jinnah, lead author of the Science policy analyst and professor of environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Harvard researchers launched the project, called SCoPEx, short for Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment, in 2017. To better understand the potential risks or benefits of solar geoengineering, they planned to conduct the first-ever outdoor experiment using reflective particles. They would release some of those aerosols into the stratosphere via balloon and then fly the balloon through the plume to take measurements. The goal was to see how the particles interact with each other and with other elements of the environment, yielding data that could be used to build more accurate computer models.
That never happened. An engineering test flight without any particle release was supposed to take place in Sweden in 2021, but it was canceled after facing strong opposition from local indigenous leaders. A major point of contention was that the researchers initially did not contact the Saami Council, which represents indigenous Saami peoples’ organizations in the region. Members of the SCoPEx advisory board disagreed on whether or not to consult the Saami since the test flight would not release anything into the atmosphere, according to the policy analysis. The majority ultimately decided that the test flight could proceed if there were no significant environmental concerns to report.
The Saami Council did, however, learn of the plans and wrote a strongly worded letter to the advisory board urging the researchers to cancel the flight. They said it was “remarkable” that the test flight would take place without consulting the Saami people or other local stakeholders, given the controversy surrounding solar geoengineering. Local environmental advocates, including the Swedish chapters of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, also signed the letter.
Solar geoengineering is still considered a “false solution” to climate change by many activists. Injecting particles into the atmosphere attempts to recreate the way erupting volcanoes can temporarily cool the planet by releasing sulfur dioxide. But sulfur dioxide could also lead to acid rain, worsen the Antarctic ozone hole, or have other unintended consequences. There are also concerns that solar geoengineering could distract from efforts to transition to clean energy or lead to a dangerous swing in global temperatures if it were ever implemented and then abruptly stopped.
“We note that [solar geoengineering using reflective particles] “It is a technology that carries risks of catastrophic consequences… There are therefore no acceptable reasons to allow the SCoPEx project to be conducted in Sweden or elsewhere,” the Saami Council letter states.
The advisory board ultimately recommended canceling the test flight in Sweden after receiving that letter. By 2023, Harvard had told the advisory board that it had “paused” the project and then canceled it altogether in March of this year. The project “has struggled with both intense media attention and how to respond to the Science Advisory Board’s requests to engage broadly and formally with the public,” Nature reported at the time, citing one of the project leaders.
“I am grateful for the insights of the SCoPEx Advisory Board. Their careful analysis is valuable to the scientific community as it considers important governance issues,” says Frank Keutsch, who served as the principal investigator for SCoPEx. The limit in an email. He did not elaborate on why the project ended.
It will take more than an ad hoc committee to effectively oversee geoengineering research in the future, according to a newly released policy analysis. “It’s time for governments to start talking about coordinating research governance,” it says.
Such discussions have already begun at the European Commission and the UN Environment Assembly, although they have not yet led to any concrete new policies. There has been a moratorium on large-scale geoengineering since the 2010 UN Biodiversity Conference, but it excludes small-scale scientific research.
And small, makeshift ventures have become a bigger concern lately. Last year, the founders of a geoengineering startup grilled fungicide in a California parking lot to produce sulfur dioxide gas that they then attempted to launch into the atmosphere via weather balloons. That followed a similar balloon launch in Mexico that prompted the local government to ban solar geoengineering experiments. The policy analysis calls the startup’s efforts “irresponsible” and “not tied to any legitimate scientific research.”
Since then, there have been calls to establish rules on how to regulate future experiments or to stop solar geoengineering altogether. But without broader policies in place, keeping up with new geoengineering efforts becomes a bit like playing whack-a-mole around the world.
Such policies could also ensure that neighboring communities have a say in projects that might affect them. And as we learned with SCoPEx, even the most thorough efforts can skip this step to their detriment.
