April 22, 2025

Geoengineering – an explainer on the science and ethics

Geoengineering, also known as climate engineering or climate intervention, refers to the deliberate, large-scale manipulation of the Earth’s climate system to counteract human-caused climate change. It involves interventions like reflecting sunlight back into space to mitigate the effects of global warming. While the UK government and main research funders are in favour of conducting fundamental research to improve our understanding of these potential interventions (but not deployment of these approaches), these initiatives have still proved controversial with many inside and outside science, who argue that even researching this area is a dangerous distraction from the kind of climate action we need now.

The National Environment Research Council (NERC) announced £10 million of new funding for modelling solar radiation management schemes last week and we expect ARIA to announce funding soon. The Royal Society is currently working on a new report on Solar Radiation Management (SRM) expected later this year, and NERC, part of UK Research and Innovation, have also announced a public engagement exercise this summer. With all this activity planned, the SMC invited some leading experts to meet science journalists explain the main scientific approaches to this research, outline why funders believe this research is justified and answer questions.

Speakers included:

Prof Mark Symes, Programme Director, ARIA and Professor of Electrochemistry and Electrochemical Technology, University of Glasgow

Kate Hamer, NERC Director, Strategy & Analysis

Prof Jim Haywood, Professor of Atmospheric Science, University of Exeter

Dr Pete Irvine, Research Assistant Professor, Solar Geoengineering, University of Chicago and Co-founder of SRM360

Dr Sebastian Eastham, Senior Lecturer in Sustainable Aviation, Imperial College London