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Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI) poses a moral hazard where a perceived 'quick fix' to climate change may reduce the urgency of efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and transition to sustainable energy

Opponents of SAI often point to the perceived 'moral hazard' associated with it. A moral hazard is generally defined as a situation where one party is insulated from the consequences of their actions and, therefore, is willing to take on larger risks. An analogy for this is bank bailouts, where large banks engage in risky financial practices with the belief that they will be bailed out in the future during a financial crisis. In the context of SAI, this is the idea that a 'quick fix' to climate change may reduce the urgency of efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and transition to sustainable energy, leading to over-reliance on SAI rather than addressing the root causes of climate change through mitigation programs 1. This argument is also used for a range of climate change adaptation methods, such as carbon dioxide removal technologies. The moral hazard of SAI is often the main reason cited for opposing real-world SAI testing, as technological advances in SAI are viewed as a Pandora's box that, once opened, will be extremely difficult to resist the urge to use 2 3.

It is difficult to quantify how strong this moral hazard is in undermining climate mitigation efforts, as it is not yet clear how effective SAI is likely to be in mitigating climate change. The degree of moral hazard is likely to be highly dependent on the effectiveness of SAI in mitigating climate change. If SAI is found to be highly effective with a low degree of negative consequences, the moral hazard will increase. If SAI is found to be less effective than imagined, or if the risks of SAI, such as termination shock, are so large that the deployment of SAI can only be done on a smaller scale, the moral hazard will decrease.

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Footnotes​

  1. Stephens, J. C., Kashwan, P., McLaren, D., & Surprise, K. (2021). The dangers of mainstreaming solar geoengineering: A critique of the National Academies report. Environmental Politics, 32(1), 157-166. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2021.1989214 ↩

  2. Harris, M. (2011, September 22). SPICE put on ice. Nature News. https://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/09/spice_put_on_ice.html ↩

  3. Jinnah, S., Bedsworth, L., Talati, S., Gerrard, M. B., Kleeman, M., Lempert, R., Mach, K., Nurse, L., Patrick, H. O., & Sugiyama, M. (2024). Final report of the SCoPEx Advisory Committee. SCoPEx Advisory Committee. https://scopexac.com/finalreport/ ↩