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Duncan McLaren

UCLA School of Law, Emmett Institute, Post-Doc

Lancaster University, Lancaster Environment Centre, Post-Doc

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Currently working as a Research Fellow focusing on politics of climate engineering interventions. My work coalesces around the cultural political ecology of technologies in society, and their implications for justice, and typically involves deliberative public or stakeholder engagement.

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University of California, Los Angeles

Bronislaw Szerszynski

Lancaster University

University of Melbourne

Benjamin Sovacool

Boston University

Asbjørn Torvanger

Peter Christoff

University of Melbourne

University of Twente

The University of Manchester

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Papers by Duncan McLaren

Which Net Zero? Climate Justice and Net Zero Emissions

Ethics & International Affairs

In recent years, the target of reaching “net zero” emissions by 2050 has come to the forefront of... more In recent years, the target of reaching “net zero” emissions by 2050 has come to the forefront of global climate politics. Net zero would see carbon emissions matched by carbon removals and should allow the planet to avoid dangerous climate change. But the recent prominence of this goal should not distract from the fact that there are many possible versions of net zero. Each of them will have different climate justice implications, and some of them could have very negative consequences for the world's poor. This article demonstrates the many ambiguities of net zero, and argues in favor of a net zero strategy in which those who can reasonably bear the burden adopt early and aggressive mitigation policies. We also argue for a net zero strategy in which countries place the lion's share of their faith in known emissions reduction approaches, rather than being heavily reliant on as-yet-unproven “negative emissions techniques.” Our overarching goal is to put net zero in its place,...

Navigating Potential Hype and Opportunity in Governing Marine Carbon Removal

Frontiers in Climate, 2021

As the technical and political challenges of land-based carbon dioxide removal (CDR) approaches b... more As the technical and political challenges of land-based carbon dioxide removal (CDR) approaches become more apparent, the oceans may be the new “blue” frontier for carbon drawdown strategies in climate governance. Drawing on lessons learnt from the way terrestrial carbon dioxide removal emerged, we explore increasing overall attention to marine environments and mCDR projects, and how this could manifest in four entwined knowledge systems and governance sectors. We consider how developments within and between these “frontiers” could result in different futures—where hype and over-promising around marine carbon drawdown could enable continued time-buying for the carbon economy without providing significant removals, or where reforms to modeling practices, policy development, innovation funding, and legal governance could seek co-benefits between ocean protection, economy, and climate.

Reconfiguring repair: Contested politics and values of repair challenge instrumental discourses found in circular economies literature

Resources, Conservation & Recycling: X, 2020

The treatment of ideas of repair in circular economy literature is critically reviewed, revealing... more The treatment of ideas of repair in circular economy literature is critically reviewed, revealing instrumental understandings of repair as a tool to extend product lifespans and reduce waste. These framings are interpreted as an expression of the dominant technocratic and post-political discourses of circular economy as an intervention to sustain industrial capitalism in the face of sustainability constraints. The review contrasts these understandings of repair derived from a review of circular economy literature with richer and contested interpretations found in sociological, ethnographic and political literatures examining material repair in practice. Drawing on the emerging sociology of repair and applying more distinct concepts of restoration, remediation, reconfiguration and reconciliation derived from these literatures, the paper argues that the understandings of repair in circular economy literature are limited and restrictive, generally supporting a view of repair as sustaining, consumerist and nostalgic; and thereby overlooking potentially transformative, political and futureoriented roles for repair in a circular economy. In the restorative and remedial modes most commonly understood in the circular economy, repair is seen to enable new forms of capitalist commodification, notably of waste and domestic labour. Learning from contestation in other arenas of repair by contrast, understanding repair as encompassing ideas for reconciliation and reconfiguration, and adopting values of integrity, care and legibility, opens up repair in the circular economy to constructive critical discussion and reflection and offers new insights for policy makers.

The co-evolution of technological promises, modelling, policies and climate change targets

Nature Climate Change, 2020

The nature and framing of climate targets in international politics has changed substantially sin... more The nature and framing of climate targets in international politics has changed substantially since their early expressions in the 1980s. Here we describe their evolution in five phases from 'climate stabilisation' to specific 'temperature outcomes', co-evolving with wider climate politics and policy, modelling methods and scenarios, and technological promises (from nuclear power to carbon removal). We argue that this co-evolution has enabled policy prevarication, leaving mitigation poorly delivered, yet the technological promises often remain buried in the models used to inform policy. We conclude with a call to recognise and break this pattern to unleash more effective and just climate policy.

Attractions of delay: Using deliberative engagement to investigate the political and strategic impacts of greenhouse gas removal technologies

Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 2021

Concerns have been raised that a focus on greenhouse gas removals (GGR) in climate models, scient... more Concerns have been raised that a focus on greenhouse gas removals (GGR) in climate models, scientific literature and other media might deter measures to mitigate climate change through reduction of emissions at source – the phenomenon of ‘mitigation deterrence’. Given the urgent need for climate action, any delay in emissions reduction would be worrying. We convened nine deliberative workshops to expose stakeholders to futures scenarios involving mitigation deterrence. The workshops examined ways in which deterrence might arise, and how it could be minimized. The deliberation exposed social and cultural interactions that might otherwise remain hidden. The paper describes narratives and ideas discussed in the workshops regarding political and economic mechanisms through which mitigation deterrence might occur, the plausibility of such pathways, and measures recommended to reduce the risk of such occurrence. Mitigation deterrence is interpreted as an important example of the ‘attracti...

The politics and governance of research into solar geoengineering

WIREs Climate Change, 2021

Research into solar geoengineering, far from being societally neutral, is already highly intertwi... more Research into solar geoengineering, far from being societally neutral, is already highly intertwined with its emerging politics. This review outlines ways in which research conditions or constructs solar geoengineering in diverse ways, including the forms of possible material technologies of solar geoengineering; the criteria and targets for their assessment; the scenarios in which they might be deployed; the publics which may support or oppose them; their political implications for other climate responses, and the international relations, governance mechanisms, and configurations of power that are presumed in order to regulate them. The review also examines proposals for governance of research, including suggested frameworks, principles, procedures, and institutions. It critically assesses these proposals, revealing their limitations given the context of the conditioning effects of current research. The review particularly highlights problems of the reproduction of Northern norms, instrumental approaches to public engagement, a weak embrace of precaution, and a persistent-but questionable-separation of research from deployment. It details complexities inherent in effective research governance which contribute to making the pursuit of solar geoengineering risky, controversial, and ethically contentious. In conclusion, it suggests a case for an explicit, reflexive research governance regime developed with international participation. It suggests that such a regime should encompass modeling and social science, as well as field experimentation, and must address not only technical and environmental, but also the emergent social and political, implications of research.

The risks of solar geoengineering research

Science, 2021

Repair for a Broken Economy: Lessons for Circular Economy from an International Interview Study of Repairers

Sustainability, 2021

The idea of replacing the broken linear economy with circular forms to help address the current s... more The idea of replacing the broken linear economy with circular forms to help address the current sustainability crisis is gaining world-wide traction in policy, industry, and academia. This article presents results from an international interview study with 34 repair practitioners and experts in different fields. The article aims to improve understandings of the potential of repair so as to contribute to a more just, sustainable, and circular economy. Through a five-step qualitative method the results reveal and explore three tensions inherent in repair: first, repair activities constitute different forms of subjectivity; second, repair entails different and sometimes contested temporalities; and finally, even though repair is deeply political in practice, the politics of repair are not always explicit, and some repair activities are actively depoliticized. The opportunities and obstacles embodied in these tensions are generative in repair practices and debates, but poorly reflected ...

Whose climate and whose ethics? Conceptions of justice in solar geoengineering modelling

Energy Research & Social Science, 2018

The role of underlying assumptions about justice in the construction of climate geoengineering kn... more The role of underlying assumptions about justice in the construction of climate geoengineering knowledge is explored, based on a review of climate modelling studies focused on stratospheric aerosol injection. Such emerging technologies would create distinctively new climates, closer to the present climate than those resulting from unabated emissions; but with different winners and losers, in part as a result of implications for energy systems. Embedded presuppositions about the nature and practice of modelling are exposed, as are unexplored and narrow utilitarian and distributional conceptions of justice. The implications of these underlying assumptions and values for the discourses of climate geoengineering are considered. It is argued that they obscure the identification and consideration of a range of potential injustices arising in the pursuit of climate geoengineering; and create and reproduce asymmetries in power regarding the discourses and evaluations of climate geoengineering prospects. In particular, optimistic climate geoengineering discourses risk sustaining elite interests in high-carbon energy economies. Some suggestions are offered to improve the design, deployment and interpretation of climate engineering models in trans-disciplinary research so as to mitigate these problems. Highlights  geoengineering modeling typically embodies unexplored utilitarian ideas of justice  geoengineering modeling presumptions and practices may help deter mitigation  geoengineering models should be used as experimental sandpits not truth-machines

Sharing Society: Reclaiming the City

Sharing Cities, 2016

The Sharing City: Understanding and Acting on the Sharing Paradigm

Sharing Cities, 2016

Mirror mirror, on the wall: Fairness and justice in geo-engineering discourses

ABSTRACT

A comparative global assessment of potential negative emissions technologies

Process Safety and Environmental Protection, 2012

The paper summarises a global assessment of around 30 prospective negative emissions techniques (... more The paper summarises a global assessment of around 30 prospective negative emissions techniques (NETs) found in the literature. Fourteen techniques including direct air capture, BECCS, biochar, and ocean alkalinity enhancement are considered in more detail. The novel functional categorisation of NETs developed in the course of the assessment is set out and a comparative quantitative summary of the results is presented, focusing on the relative readiness, global capacity, costs and side-effects of the prospective NETs. Both technology specific and more generic potential limitations are discussed, notably those arising from energy requirements, from availability of geological storage capacity and from sustainable supply of biomass. Conclusions are drawn regarding the overall scope of NETs to contribute to safe carbon budgets, and challenges arising in the future governance of NETs, with particular reference to the potential role of carbon markets.

Governance and equity in the development and deployment of negative emissions technologies

This paper draws on a recent global assessment of carbon dioxide removal (or negative emissions) ... more

Towards a cultural political economy of mitigation deterrence by negative emissions technologies (NETs)

Global Sustainability, 2018

Non-technical summaryIn the face of limited carbon budgets, negative emissions technologies (NETs... more Non-technical summaryIn the face of limited carbon budgets, negative emissions technologies (NETs) offer hopes of removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. It is difficult to determine whether the prospect of NETs is significantly deterring or delaying timely action to cut emissions. This paper sets out a novel theoretical perspective to this challenge, enabling analysis that accounts for interactions between technologies, society and political and economic power. The paper argues that, seen in this light, the scope of NETs to substitute for mitigation may be easily exaggerated, and thus that the risk of harm from mitigation deterrence should be taken seriously.

Clash of Geofutures and the Remaking of Planetary Order: Faultlines underlying Conflicts over Geoengineering Governance

Global Policy

Climate engineering (geoengineering) is rising up the global policy agenda, partly because intern... more Climate engineering (geoengineering) is rising up the global policy agenda, partly because international divisions pose deep challenges to collective climate mitigation. However, geoengineering is similarly subject to clashing interests, knowledge-traditions and geopolitics. Modelling and technical assessments of geoengineering are facilitated by assumptions of a single global planner (or some as yet unspecified rational governance), but the practicality of international governance remains mostly speculative. Using evidence gathered from state delegates, climate activists and modellers, we reveal three underlying and clashing ‘geofutures’: an idealised understanding of governable geoengineering that abstracts from technical and political realities; a situated understanding of geoengineering emphasising power hierarchies in world order; and a pragmatist precautionary understanding emerging in spaces of negotiation such as UN Environment Assembly (UNEA). Set in the wider historical context of climate politics, the failure to agree even to a study of geoengineering at UNEA indicates underlying obstacles to global rules and institutions for geoengineering posed by divergent interests and underlying epistemic and political differences. Technology assessments should recognise that geoengineering will not be exempt from international fractures; that deployment of geoengineering through imposition is a serious risk; and that contestations over geofutures pertain, not only to climate policy, but also the future of planetary order.

Quantifying the potential scale of mitigation deterrence from greenhouse gas removal techniques

Climatic Change

Greenhouse gas removal (GGR) techniques appear to offer hopes of balancing limited global carbon ... more Greenhouse gas removal (GGR) techniques appear to offer hopes of balancing limited global carbon budgets by removing substantial amounts of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere later this century. This hope rests on an assumption that GGR will largely supplement emissions reduction. The paper reviews the expectations of GGR implied by integrated assessment modelling, categorizes ways in which delivery or promises of GGR might instead deter or delay emissions reduction, and offers a preliminary estimate of the possible extent of three such forms of ‘mitigation deterrence’. Type 1 is described as ‘substitution and failure’: an estimated 50–229 Gt-C (or 70% of expected GGR) may substitute for emissions otherwise reduced, yet may not be delivered (as a result of political, economic or technical shortcomings, or subsequent leakage or diversion of captured carbon into short-term utilization). Type 2, described as ‘rebounds’, encompasses rebounds, multipliers, and side-effects, such as tho...

Beyond “Net-Zero”: A Case for Separate Targets for Emissions Reduction and Negative Emissions

Frontiers in Climate

Targets and accounting for negative emissions should be explicitly set and managed separately fro... more Targets and accounting for negative emissions should be explicitly set and managed separately from existing and future targets for emissions reduction. Failure to make such a separation has already hampered climate policy, exaggerating the expected future contribution of negative emissions in climate models, while also obscuring the extent and pace of the investment needed to deliver negative emissions. Separation would help minimize the negative impacts that promises and deployments of negative emissions could have on emissions reduction, arising from effects such as temporal trade-offs, excessive offsetting, and technological lock-in. Benefits for international, national, local, organizational, and sectoral planning would arise from greater clarity over the role and timing of negative emissions alongside accelerated emissions reduction.

Mitigation deterrence and the “moral hazard” of solar radiation management

Earth's Future, 2016

Fears of a moral hazard effect deterring mitigation have dogged solar radiation management (SRM) ... more Fears of a moral hazard effect deterring mitigation have dogged solar radiation management (SRM) research since before 2006. Researchers have debated the significance and relevance of this concern from multiple disciplines and perspectives. This article explores this debate, highlighting the significance of policy goals and the actual and perceived substitutability of SRM for mitigation. The continuing problems in detecting mitigation deterrence in practice are noted. Different forms of moral hazard effect are distinguished, and the plausibility of mitigation galvanization considered. It is predicted that attention will turn to the situated, contingent expressions of mitigation deterrence and mitigation galvanization among different actors and at different scales; and to more sophisticated practical means to minimize the incidence and impacts of mitigation deterrence.

In a broken world: Towards an ethics of repair in the Anthropocene

The Anthropocene Review

With the power to break Earth Systems comes responsibility to care for them, and arguably to repa... more With the power to break Earth Systems comes responsibility to care for them, and arguably to repair them. Climate geoengineering is one possible approach. But repair is under-researched and underspecified in this context. In a first attempt to establish basic principles for the obligations of repair in the Anthropocene, five disciplines of repair are briefly reviewed: reconstruction of historic buildings; remediation of human bodies; restoration of ecosystems; reconfiguration of cultural materials and artifacts; and reconciliation of broken relationships. In each case ethical practices and debates are described to help identify key themes and challenges in understanding repair. Three interlinked pragmatic ethics or virtues of repair in the Anthropocene are suggested: care, integrity, and legibility. Implications for climate geoengineering, climate politics, and the possibilities of climate justice are explored. Climate repair is defended against objections that it would exacerbate a...

Which Net Zero? Climate Justice and Net Zero Emissions

Ethics & International Affairs

In recent years, the target of reaching “net zero” emissions by 2050 has come to the forefront of... more In recent years, the target of reaching “net zero” emissions by 2050 has come to the forefront of global climate politics. Net zero would see carbon emissions matched by carbon removals and should allow the planet to avoid dangerous climate change. But the recent prominence of this goal should not distract from the fact that there are many possible versions of net zero. Each of them will have different climate justice implications, and some of them could have very negative consequences for the world's poor. This article demonstrates the many ambiguities of net zero, and argues in favor of a net zero strategy in which those who can reasonably bear the burden adopt early and aggressive mitigation policies. We also argue for a net zero strategy in which countries place the lion's share of their faith in known emissions reduction approaches, rather than being heavily reliant on as-yet-unproven “negative emissions techniques.” Our overarching goal is to put net zero in its place,...

Navigating Potential Hype and Opportunity in Governing Marine Carbon Removal

Frontiers in Climate, 2021

As the technical and political challenges of land-based carbon dioxide removal (CDR) approaches b... more As the technical and political challenges of land-based carbon dioxide removal (CDR) approaches become more apparent, the oceans may be the new “blue” frontier for carbon drawdown strategies in climate governance. Drawing on lessons learnt from the way terrestrial carbon dioxide removal emerged, we explore increasing overall attention to marine environments and mCDR projects, and how this could manifest in four entwined knowledge systems and governance sectors. We consider how developments within and between these “frontiers” could result in different futures—where hype and over-promising around marine carbon drawdown could enable continued time-buying for the carbon economy without providing significant removals, or where reforms to modeling practices, policy development, innovation funding, and legal governance could seek co-benefits between ocean protection, economy, and climate.

Reconfiguring repair: Contested politics and values of repair challenge instrumental discourses found in circular economies literature

Resources, Conservation & Recycling: X, 2020

The treatment of ideas of repair in circular economy literature is critically reviewed, revealing... more The treatment of ideas of repair in circular economy literature is critically reviewed, revealing instrumental understandings of repair as a tool to extend product lifespans and reduce waste. These framings are interpreted as an expression of the dominant technocratic and post-political discourses of circular economy as an intervention to sustain industrial capitalism in the face of sustainability constraints. The review contrasts these understandings of repair derived from a review of circular economy literature with richer and contested interpretations found in sociological, ethnographic and political literatures examining material repair in practice. Drawing on the emerging sociology of repair and applying more distinct concepts of restoration, remediation, reconfiguration and reconciliation derived from these literatures, the paper argues that the understandings of repair in circular economy literature are limited and restrictive, generally supporting a view of repair as sustaining, consumerist and nostalgic; and thereby overlooking potentially transformative, political and futureoriented roles for repair in a circular economy. In the restorative and remedial modes most commonly understood in the circular economy, repair is seen to enable new forms of capitalist commodification, notably of waste and domestic labour. Learning from contestation in other arenas of repair by contrast, understanding repair as encompassing ideas for reconciliation and reconfiguration, and adopting values of integrity, care and legibility, opens up repair in the circular economy to constructive critical discussion and reflection and offers new insights for policy makers.

The co-evolution of technological promises, modelling, policies and climate change targets

Nature Climate Change, 2020

The nature and framing of climate targets in international politics has changed substantially sin... more The nature and framing of climate targets in international politics has changed substantially since their early expressions in the 1980s. Here we describe their evolution in five phases from 'climate stabilisation' to specific 'temperature outcomes', co-evolving with wider climate politics and policy, modelling methods and scenarios, and technological promises (from nuclear power to carbon removal). We argue that this co-evolution has enabled policy prevarication, leaving mitigation poorly delivered, yet the technological promises often remain buried in the models used to inform policy. We conclude with a call to recognise and break this pattern to unleash more effective and just climate policy.

Attractions of delay: Using deliberative engagement to investigate the political and strategic impacts of greenhouse gas removal technologies

Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 2021

Concerns have been raised that a focus on greenhouse gas removals (GGR) in climate models, scient... more Concerns have been raised that a focus on greenhouse gas removals (GGR) in climate models, scientific literature and other media might deter measures to mitigate climate change through reduction of emissions at source – the phenomenon of ‘mitigation deterrence’. Given the urgent need for climate action, any delay in emissions reduction would be worrying. We convened nine deliberative workshops to expose stakeholders to futures scenarios involving mitigation deterrence. The workshops examined ways in which deterrence might arise, and how it could be minimized. The deliberation exposed social and cultural interactions that might otherwise remain hidden. The paper describes narratives and ideas discussed in the workshops regarding political and economic mechanisms through which mitigation deterrence might occur, the plausibility of such pathways, and measures recommended to reduce the risk of such occurrence. Mitigation deterrence is interpreted as an important example of the ‘attracti...

The politics and governance of research into solar geoengineering

WIREs Climate Change, 2021

Research into solar geoengineering, far from being societally neutral, is already highly intertwi... more Research into solar geoengineering, far from being societally neutral, is already highly intertwined with its emerging politics. This review outlines ways in which research conditions or constructs solar geoengineering in diverse ways, including the forms of possible material technologies of solar geoengineering; the criteria and targets for their assessment; the scenarios in which they might be deployed; the publics which may support or oppose them; their political implications for other climate responses, and the international relations, governance mechanisms, and configurations of power that are presumed in order to regulate them. The review also examines proposals for governance of research, including suggested frameworks, principles, procedures, and institutions. It critically assesses these proposals, revealing their limitations given the context of the conditioning effects of current research. The review particularly highlights problems of the reproduction of Northern norms, instrumental approaches to public engagement, a weak embrace of precaution, and a persistent-but questionable-separation of research from deployment. It details complexities inherent in effective research governance which contribute to making the pursuit of solar geoengineering risky, controversial, and ethically contentious. In conclusion, it suggests a case for an explicit, reflexive research governance regime developed with international participation. It suggests that such a regime should encompass modeling and social science, as well as field experimentation, and must address not only technical and environmental, but also the emergent social and political, implications of research.

The risks of solar geoengineering research

Science, 2021

Repair for a Broken Economy: Lessons for Circular Economy from an International Interview Study of Repairers

Sustainability, 2021

The idea of replacing the broken linear economy with circular forms to help address the current s... more The idea of replacing the broken linear economy with circular forms to help address the current sustainability crisis is gaining world-wide traction in policy, industry, and academia. This article presents results from an international interview study with 34 repair practitioners and experts in different fields. The article aims to improve understandings of the potential of repair so as to contribute to a more just, sustainable, and circular economy. Through a five-step qualitative method the results reveal and explore three tensions inherent in repair: first, repair activities constitute different forms of subjectivity; second, repair entails different and sometimes contested temporalities; and finally, even though repair is deeply political in practice, the politics of repair are not always explicit, and some repair activities are actively depoliticized. The opportunities and obstacles embodied in these tensions are generative in repair practices and debates, but poorly reflected ...

Whose climate and whose ethics? Conceptions of justice in solar geoengineering modelling

Energy Research & Social Science, 2018

The role of underlying assumptions about justice in the construction of climate geoengineering kn... more The role of underlying assumptions about justice in the construction of climate geoengineering knowledge is explored, based on a review of climate modelling studies focused on stratospheric aerosol injection. Such emerging technologies would create distinctively new climates, closer to the present climate than those resulting from unabated emissions; but with different winners and losers, in part as a result of implications for energy systems. Embedded presuppositions about the nature and practice of modelling are exposed, as are unexplored and narrow utilitarian and distributional conceptions of justice. The implications of these underlying assumptions and values for the discourses of climate geoengineering are considered. It is argued that they obscure the identification and consideration of a range of potential injustices arising in the pursuit of climate geoengineering; and create and reproduce asymmetries in power regarding the discourses and evaluations of climate geoengineering prospects. In particular, optimistic climate geoengineering discourses risk sustaining elite interests in high-carbon energy economies. Some suggestions are offered to improve the design, deployment and interpretation of climate engineering models in trans-disciplinary research so as to mitigate these problems. Highlights  geoengineering modeling typically embodies unexplored utilitarian ideas of justice  geoengineering modeling presumptions and practices may help deter mitigation  geoengineering models should be used as experimental sandpits not truth-machines

Sharing Society: Reclaiming the City

Sharing Cities, 2016

The Sharing City: Understanding and Acting on the Sharing Paradigm

Sharing Cities, 2016

Mirror mirror, on the wall: Fairness and justice in geo-engineering discourses

ABSTRACT

A comparative global assessment of potential negative emissions technologies

Process Safety and Environmental Protection, 2012

The paper summarises a global assessment of around 30 prospective negative emissions techniques (... more The paper summarises a global assessment of around 30 prospective negative emissions techniques (NETs) found in the literature. Fourteen techniques including direct air capture, BECCS, biochar, and ocean alkalinity enhancement are considered in more detail. The novel functional categorisation of NETs developed in the course of the assessment is set out and a comparative quantitative summary of the results is presented, focusing on the relative readiness, global capacity, costs and side-effects of the prospective NETs. Both technology specific and more generic potential limitations are discussed, notably those arising from energy requirements, from availability of geological storage capacity and from sustainable supply of biomass. Conclusions are drawn regarding the overall scope of NETs to contribute to safe carbon budgets, and challenges arising in the future governance of NETs, with particular reference to the potential role of carbon markets.

Governance and equity in the development and deployment of negative emissions technologies

This paper draws on a recent global assessment of carbon dioxide removal (or negative emissions) ... more

Towards a cultural political economy of mitigation deterrence by negative emissions technologies (NETs)

Global Sustainability, 2018

Non-technical summaryIn the face of limited carbon budgets, negative emissions technologies (NETs... more Non-technical summaryIn the face of limited carbon budgets, negative emissions technologies (NETs) offer hopes of removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. It is difficult to determine whether the prospect of NETs is significantly deterring or delaying timely action to cut emissions. This paper sets out a novel theoretical perspective to this challenge, enabling analysis that accounts for interactions between technologies, society and political and economic power. The paper argues that, seen in this light, the scope of NETs to substitute for mitigation may be easily exaggerated, and thus that the risk of harm from mitigation deterrence should be taken seriously.

Clash of Geofutures and the Remaking of Planetary Order: Faultlines underlying Conflicts over Geoengineering Governance

Global Policy

Climate engineering (geoengineering) is rising up the global policy agenda, partly because intern... more Climate engineering (geoengineering) is rising up the global policy agenda, partly because international divisions pose deep challenges to collective climate mitigation. However, geoengineering is similarly subject to clashing interests, knowledge-traditions and geopolitics. Modelling and technical assessments of geoengineering are facilitated by assumptions of a single global planner (or some as yet unspecified rational governance), but the practicality of international governance remains mostly speculative. Using evidence gathered from state delegates, climate activists and modellers, we reveal three underlying and clashing ‘geofutures’: an idealised understanding of governable geoengineering that abstracts from technical and political realities; a situated understanding of geoengineering emphasising power hierarchies in world order; and a pragmatist precautionary understanding emerging in spaces of negotiation such as UN Environment Assembly (UNEA). Set in the wider historical context of climate politics, the failure to agree even to a study of geoengineering at UNEA indicates underlying obstacles to global rules and institutions for geoengineering posed by divergent interests and underlying epistemic and political differences. Technology assessments should recognise that geoengineering will not be exempt from international fractures; that deployment of geoengineering through imposition is a serious risk; and that contestations over geofutures pertain, not only to climate policy, but also the future of planetary order.

Quantifying the potential scale of mitigation deterrence from greenhouse gas removal techniques

Climatic Change

Greenhouse gas removal (GGR) techniques appear to offer hopes of balancing limited global carbon ... more Greenhouse gas removal (GGR) techniques appear to offer hopes of balancing limited global carbon budgets by removing substantial amounts of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere later this century. This hope rests on an assumption that GGR will largely supplement emissions reduction. The paper reviews the expectations of GGR implied by integrated assessment modelling, categorizes ways in which delivery or promises of GGR might instead deter or delay emissions reduction, and offers a preliminary estimate of the possible extent of three such forms of ‘mitigation deterrence’. Type 1 is described as ‘substitution and failure’: an estimated 50–229 Gt-C (or 70% of expected GGR) may substitute for emissions otherwise reduced, yet may not be delivered (as a result of political, economic or technical shortcomings, or subsequent leakage or diversion of captured carbon into short-term utilization). Type 2, described as ‘rebounds’, encompasses rebounds, multipliers, and side-effects, such as tho...

Beyond “Net-Zero”: A Case for Separate Targets for Emissions Reduction and Negative Emissions

Frontiers in Climate

Targets and accounting for negative emissions should be explicitly set and managed separately fro... more Targets and accounting for negative emissions should be explicitly set and managed separately from existing and future targets for emissions reduction. Failure to make such a separation has already hampered climate policy, exaggerating the expected future contribution of negative emissions in climate models, while also obscuring the extent and pace of the investment needed to deliver negative emissions. Separation would help minimize the negative impacts that promises and deployments of negative emissions could have on emissions reduction, arising from effects such as temporal trade-offs, excessive offsetting, and technological lock-in. Benefits for international, national, local, organizational, and sectoral planning would arise from greater clarity over the role and timing of negative emissions alongside accelerated emissions reduction.

Mitigation deterrence and the “moral hazard” of solar radiation management

Earth's Future, 2016

Fears of a moral hazard effect deterring mitigation have dogged solar radiation management (SRM) ... more Fears of a moral hazard effect deterring mitigation have dogged solar radiation management (SRM) research since before 2006. Researchers have debated the significance and relevance of this concern from multiple disciplines and perspectives. This article explores this debate, highlighting the significance of policy goals and the actual and perceived substitutability of SRM for mitigation. The continuing problems in detecting mitigation deterrence in practice are noted. Different forms of moral hazard effect are distinguished, and the plausibility of mitigation galvanization considered. It is predicted that attention will turn to the situated, contingent expressions of mitigation deterrence and mitigation galvanization among different actors and at different scales; and to more sophisticated practical means to minimize the incidence and impacts of mitigation deterrence.

In a broken world: Towards an ethics of repair in the Anthropocene

The Anthropocene Review

With the power to break Earth Systems comes responsibility to care for them, and arguably to repa... more With the power to break Earth Systems comes responsibility to care for them, and arguably to repair them. Climate geoengineering is one possible approach. But repair is under-researched and underspecified in this context. In a first attempt to establish basic principles for the obligations of repair in the Anthropocene, five disciplines of repair are briefly reviewed: reconstruction of historic buildings; remediation of human bodies; restoration of ecosystems; reconfiguration of cultural materials and artifacts; and reconciliation of broken relationships. In each case ethical practices and debates are described to help identify key themes and challenges in understanding repair. Three interlinked pragmatic ethics or virtues of repair in the Anthropocene are suggested: care, integrity, and legibility. Implications for climate geoengineering, climate politics, and the possibilities of climate justice are explored. Climate repair is defended against objections that it would exacerbate a...

Transcending the sharing economy

The limitations of the sharing economy as an object for study and policy are explored. A typical ... more The limitations of the sharing economy as an object for study and policy are explored. A typical economic framing is contrasted with a sharing paradigm that encompasses four different 'flavours' of sharing activity. Brief city-‐based descriptions of explicit and implicit forms of the emergent sharing paradigm are used to sketch contrasting approaches and motivations in different cultural and global settings, revealing a wealth and diversity of sharing activity. New agendas are proposed for trans-‐disciplinary research and integrated policy.