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2011 Carbon & Climate L. Rev. 178 (2011)
Geoengineering the Climate: Technological Solutions to Mitigation - Failure or Continuing Carbon Addiction

handle is hein.journals/cclr2011 and id is 186 raw text is: 1 78 Geoengineering the Climate CCLR 2~2011 Geoengineering the Climate: Technological Solutions to Mitigation - Failure or Continuing Carbon Addiction? Catherine Redgwell* This article considers the complex and controversial issue of climate geoengineering, examining the international legal framework for regulating large-scale interventions in the Earth's natural climate system to offset emissions and to avoid catastrophic climate change. It uses the injection of sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere and ocean iron fertilization as examples. It sets out the fragmented nature of the international legal framework which might regulate geoengineering, and the contours of any possible future legal response. The article concludes that the emergence at the international level of a single treaty dedicated to the regulation of all geoengineering methods is both un- likely and undesirable, favouring instead an approach based on a number of guiding principles for the governance of geoengineering research which are briefly elaborated. It suggests these could be applied against the backdrop of a general prohibition on deployment pending the fuller development of appropriate governance frameworks for specific geoengineering methods. I. Introduction: Why Geoengineer the Climate? Despite modest progress at the 2010 Cancun cli- mate change conference of the parties1 and recent figures demonstrating a slight reduction in overall global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2009,2 Professor of International Law, University College London. This paper was delivered at a conference organised jointly by the Uni- versity of Hong Kong and University College London in November 2010. 1 For assessment see Lavanya Rajamani, The Cancun Agreements: Reading the Text, Subtext and Tea Leaves, 60 International and Comparative Law Quarterly (2011), 499. 2 International Energy Agency (lEA), World Energy Outlook 2010 (Paris: lEA, 2010). 3 The International Energy Agency's World Energy Outlook 2010 not- ed with respect to the Copenhagen Accord that there is a striking gap between goal of Copenhagen accord.... and pledges countries have submitted so far. See also United Nations Environment Pro- gram (UNEP), The Emissions Gap Report: Are the Copenhagen Ac- cord Pledges Sufficient to Limit Global Warming to 2 'C or 1.5 'C? (UNEP, November 2010), at 43, and Lavanya Rajamani, The Mak- ing and the Unmaking of the Copenhagen Accord, 59 Internatio- nal and Comparative Law Quarterly (2010), 824, at 827. Estimates place current pledges in the region of 14-170% GHG reduction over 1990 levels, well short of the estimated 25-40 % required. the fact remains that international efforts to limit GHG emissions have not yet achieved significant reduction in emissions or in their rate of increase. Indeed, some initial assessments3 of the 2009 Co- penhagen Accord4 and 2010 Cancun Agreements5 suggest that the pledges undertaken do not include sufficient emission reductions to keep global tem- 4 Decision 2/CP.15, Copenhagen Accord in Report of the Confer- ence of the Parties on its Fifteenth Session, held in Copenhagen from 7 to 19 December 2009, UN Doc. FCCC/CP/2009/1 l/Add.i, 30 March 2010. 5 On the outcome of the work of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA), a 30-page document addressed to shared vision, mitigation, adaptation, finance, and technology under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), see Decision 1/CP.16, The Cancun Agreements: Outcome of the work of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action under the Convention, UN Doc. FCCC/CP/201 0/7/Add.1, 15 March 2011 (LCA Outcome Decision 2010), and on the out- come of the Ad HocWorking Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP), a 2-page document addressed to the mitigation commitments of Annex I parties under the Kyoto Protocol, see Decision 1/CMP.6, The Cancun Agreements: Outcome of the work of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol, UN Doc. FCCC/KP/CMP/2010/12/ Add.1, 15 March 2011. 1 78 Geoengineering the Climate CCLR 212011

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