TY - JOUR
T1 - Climate engineering and the cessation requirement
T2 - The ethics of a life-cycle
AU - Preston, Christopher J.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 The White Horse Press.
PY - 2016/2
Y1 - 2016/2
N2 - Much of the work on the ethics of climate engineering over the last few years has focused on the front-end of the potential timeline for climate intervention. Topics have included the initial taboo on bringing the discussion of climate engineering into the open, guidelines to put in place before commencing research, and governance arrangements before first deployment. While this work is clearly important, the current paper considers what insights can be gleaned from considering the tail-end, that is, by using the requirement for future cessation as a criterion for any acceptable climate engineering strategy. After showing that time-limited interventions are a key part of the rhetoric of leading climate engineering advocates, the paper examines the implications of imposing a ‘cessation requirement’ on solar radiation management and carbon dioxide removal strategies. Consideration of a cessation requirement turns out to reveal a great deal about what ought to be happening now, before any decision to proceed with climate engineering deployment has been taken.
AB - Much of the work on the ethics of climate engineering over the last few years has focused on the front-end of the potential timeline for climate intervention. Topics have included the initial taboo on bringing the discussion of climate engineering into the open, guidelines to put in place before commencing research, and governance arrangements before first deployment. While this work is clearly important, the current paper considers what insights can be gleaned from considering the tail-end, that is, by using the requirement for future cessation as a criterion for any acceptable climate engineering strategy. After showing that time-limited interventions are a key part of the rhetoric of leading climate engineering advocates, the paper examines the implications of imposing a ‘cessation requirement’ on solar radiation management and carbon dioxide removal strategies. Consideration of a cessation requirement turns out to reveal a great deal about what ought to be happening now, before any decision to proceed with climate engineering deployment has been taken.
KW - Carbon dioxide removal (CDR)
KW - Cessation requirement
KW - Climate engineering
KW - Restoration
KW - Solar radiation management (SRM)
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84954054212&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3197/096327115X14497392134964
DO - 10.3197/096327115X14497392134964
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84954054212
SN - 0963-2719
VL - 25
SP - 91
EP - 107
JO - Environmental Values
JF - Environmental Values
IS - 1
ER -