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Potential risk of Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI): enhanced global tensions

Summary​

Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI) deployment and research could exacerbate geopolitical tensions due to its transnational impacts and perceived risks. The technology's uneven regional effects might benefit some nations while harming others, raising sovereignty concerns. Current global governance frameworks are inadequate for managing SAI's implementation challenges, though establishing specialized governance may prove easier than broader climate agreements. Potential weaponization through infrastructure threats and termination shock risks compound these tensions. However, SAI could also mitigate climate-driven conflicts by reducing resource scarcity and climate migration pressures. The technology's development remains constrained to powerful nations, potentially worsening existing global power imbalances.

The deployment of Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI), along with research and experimentation, has the potential to cause a range of geopolitical tensions and conflict. SAI is a highly contentious topic with many regarding the technology as unproven and dangerous. SAI is also perceived as a 'moral hazard' that will result in global inaction to address the root causes of climate change. The inherent transnational effects of SAI mean that any nation that does not desire or approve the use of the technology will have its sovereignty affected. SAI is also expected to result in a range of localized climate effects that will have negative consequences for some nations, while others will receive benefits 1.

The global community lacks a cohesive system of governance to coordinate the use of SAI, and any future attempts to deploy the technology will likely face significant challenges in gaining the necessary consensus and cooperation from the international community. However, it is noted that establishing global SAI governance may be easier than establishing global governance to address climate change, as SAI is a single issue, whereas climate change is a multifaceted and complex global issue 2. There is also potential for SAI to be used as a geopolitical tool, which can be weaponized through threats to damage SAI infrastructure, leading to deadly 'termination shock' 3. Its is also possible that an extensive policy change brought on by government or regime change, similar to how the United States has formally left the Paris Agreement on two occasions, can lead to a rushed and poorly implemented removal of SAI. The capabilities for deploying SAI are limited to a small number of powerful nations, and the use of SAI has the potential to further exacerbate inequitable power dynamics between nations that 'provide' SAI and nations that 'receive' it 3.

All the potential geopolitical pressures associated with SAI considered, it also has the potential to reduce global tensions that are a consequence of climate change. Water and resource scarcity, along with global mass migrations to escape regions experiencing extreme weather events and food shortages, are expected to increase in the coming decades if climate change is not addressed. SAI has the potential to reduce the severity of these effects.

Sources​

Footnotes​

  1. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2021). Reflecting sunlight: Recommendations for solar geoengineering research and research governance. National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/25762 ↩

  2. Humphreys, D. (2011). Smoke and mirrors: Some reflections on the science and politics of geoengineering. Journal of Environment & Development, 20(2), 99-120. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26199377 ↩

  3. Tang, A., & Kemp, L. (2021). A fate worse than warming? Stratospheric aerosol injection and global catastrophic risk. Frontiers in Climate, 3, Article 720312. https://doi.org/10.3389/fclim.2021.720312 ↩ ↩2