Unproven geoengineering could be our only hope, says Royal Society report

The future of the Earth could rest on potentially dangerous and unproven geoengineering technologies unless emissions of carbon dioxide can be greatly reduced, the latest Royal Society report has found. 'Geoengineering the climate: Science, governance and uncertainty' found that unless future efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are much more successful than they have been so far, additional action in the form of geoengineering will be necessary if we are to cool the planet. Geoengineering technologies were found to be very likely to be technically possible and some were considered to be potentially useful to augment the continuing efforts to mitigate climate change by reducing emissions. However, the report identified major uncertainties regarding their effectiveness, costs and environmental impacts. Professor John Shepherd, who chaired the Royal Society's geoengineering study, said, "It is an unpalatable truth that unless we can succeed in greatly reducing carbon dioxide emissions we are headed for a very uncomfortable and challenging climate future, and geoengineering will be the only option left to limit further temperature increases. Our research found that some geoengineering techniques could have serious unintended and detrimental effects on many people and ecosystems � yet we are still failing to take the only action that will prevent us from having to rely on them. Geoengineering and its consequences are the price we may have to pay for failure to act on climate change." The report assesses the two main kinds of geoengineering techniques � Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) and Solar Radiation Management (SRM). CDR techniques address the root of the problem rising carbon dioxide and so have fewer uncertainties and risks, as they work to return the Earth to a more normal state. They are therefore considered preferable to SRM techniques, but none has yet been demonstrated to be effective at an affordable cost, with acceptable environmental impacts, and they only work to reduce temperatures over very long timescales. SRM techniques act by reflecting the sun's energy away from Earth, meaning they lower temperatures rapidly, but do not affect carbon dioxide levels. They therefore fail to address the wider effects of rising carbon dioxide, such as ocean acidification, and would need to be deployed for a very long time. Although they are relatively cheap to deploy, there are considerable uncertainties about their regional consequences, and they only reduce some, but not all, of the effects of climate change, while possibly creating other problems. The report concludes that SRM techniques could be useful if a threshold is reached where action to reduce temperatures must be taken rapidly, but that they are not an alternative to emissions reductions or CDR techniques.