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7 CCLR 125 (2013)
Tackling Climate Change: Where Can the Generic Framework Be Located

handle is hein.journals/cclr2013 and id is 133 raw text is: Tackling Climate Change: Where Can the Generic Framework Be Located? Matthias Honegger*, Kushini Sugathapala** and Axel Michaelowa*** International negotiations on climate change under the UNFCCC are increasingly burdened by the gap between low political will to engage in emissions mitigation and the level of mitigation required for limiting warming to 2 0C. Given the growing understanding that mitigation will be insufficient, adaptation has recently gained in importance - a step sometimes seen as a portent of other actions on climate yet to come such as climate engineering. Existing international treaties such as the Convention on Biodiversity or the London Convention limit climate engineering interventions but do not provide clear guidance for acceptable solutions. Given their objectives - preserving biodiversity and the integrity of oceans - are jeopardised by insufficient action on climate change, they should become more specific in this regard and avoid conflicts with other conventions. The UNFCCC could pursue any approach in line with the overarching principle in Article 2 of the Convention - to achieve stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system An interpretation beyond reductions of anthropogenic emissions could include climate engineering in form of carbon removal and radiation management technologies: The former can directly contribute to the stabilisation of greenhouse gases. The latter could help to limit indirect emissions from e.g. melting per- mafrost soils, and reduce the risks from higher level of greenhouse gas concentrations. Some climate engineering researchers argue against expanding the UNFCCC's scope. As it is the only significant framework mandated to prevent dangerous climate change, we argue that it can, should, and is likely to become the forum to govern the use of climate engineering technologies. * Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and Perspectives, Switzerland. Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva. University of Zurich and Perspectives, Switzerland. 1 Dan Bodansky, Governing Climate Engineering: Scenarios for Analysis (Cambridge, Mass.: The Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, 2011), 11 2 Stephen M. Gardiner, Some Early Ethics of Geoengineering the Climate: A Commentary on the Values of the Royal Society Report, 20 Environmental Values (2 011), 163. 3 Christopher J. Preston, Ethics and Geoengineering: Reviewing the Moral Issues Raised by Solar Radiation Management and Carbon Dioxide Removal, 4 WIREs Climate Change (2013), 23. 1. Introduction Climate engineering (CE) can take the form of car- bon dioxide removal (CDR) and radiation manage- ment technologies (RM) - two potential approaches to addressing climate change. While some CDR technologies such as reforestation are already implemented in climate policy, RM is at an embry- onic stage. Many agree that the question - to use or not to use - needs to be confronted at some point in the future. The ideal type of governance has been discussed by others' (for a discussion of ethical and other arguments see Gardiner2 and Preston 3). CCLR 2|2013 Tackling Climate Change | 125

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