The Solar Radiation Management Governance Initiative says geoengineering could be 'plan B' for climate change

More research on the risks and governance of geoengineering the planet's climate by reflecting sunlight into space is needed, a grouping of science bodies and a green NGO have said, as the end of the first week of UN climate talks nears.

Concern about such techniques is significant and so more dialogue and research is needed on the risks and benefits, said the Solar Radiation Management Governance Initiative, a coalition formed in March 2010 of the Royal Society, Italian-based academy of science for the developing world Twas, and US non-profit, the Environmental Defence Fund.

Various techniques for combating global warming by reducing the amount of the sun's energy reaching the earth have been proposed, from huge space reflectors in orbit to stratospheric aerosols released in the upper atmosphere.

A UK-backed plan to test the mechanics of inserting such aerosols, using a hosepipe attached to a giant balloon, was postponed in September and the so-called Spice project was criticised by scientists writing in Nature earlier this month.

Steven Hamburg, the chief scientist for the Environmental Defence Fund and co-chair of the SRMGI, said: "Solar radiation management might sound, at first, like something from science fiction – but it's not. There are already serious discussions beginning about it, and that's why we felt it was urgent to create this governance initiative. Solar radiation management could be a Plan B to address climate change, but first we must figure out how to research it safely. Only then should we even consider any other steps."

The SRMGI's co-chair, John Shepherd, said: "Unless the apparent lack of political will to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions changes soon, geoengineering may be needed and SRM methods could be used in unregulated and possibly reckless ways by individuals, corporations or individual countries. "

He added: "We must also work outside our national borders, bringing together interested parties from around the globe to debate the issues of geo-engineering, agree appropriate governance structures and ensure that any research is undertaken in a safe, transparent and socially acceptable manner. The question of whether solar geo-engineering will prove to be helpful or harmful will largely depend on how humanity can govern the issue and its political implications, and avoid unilateral action."

But Silvia Ribeiro, the Latin American director of the ETC Group, which campaigns against geoengineering, said: "This report is dominated by scientists engaged in geoengineering research in the UK, US and Canada. They are advocates for more research, several of them have claimed patents and have significant financial, institutional and professional interests in the field of geoengineering research. There are the same familiar names that we have seen in a whole series of recent reports: John Shepherd or David Keith."

In September, Shepherd wrote in the Guardian that research would be "sadly necessary". In October, David Keith of Harvard University, a member of the SRMGI working group, and founder and president of Carbon Engineering, a geo-engineering company with 10 employees funded with around $6m (£3.8m) by Bill Gates, wrote a study that said the public strongly reported research into solar geoengineering.

Some 72% of the 3,105 participants in the UK, US and Canada said they somewhat or strongly supported general research when asked: "Do you think scientists should study solar radiation management?"

Ribeiro went on: "Solar radiation management technologies are high-risk and extremely dangerous and they should be treated under international law like nuclear weapons – except, unlike nuclear weapons, we have an opportunity to ban their testing and their proliferation them before the technology is fully developed, rather than trying to prevent their proliferation after the fact. This is where we should be looking to for guidance on governance. We need to ban these technologies, not facilitate their development."

The SRMGI said a ban on geoengineering would not work: "A moratorium on all SRM-related research would be difficult if not impossible to enforce. The range of SRM research runs from computer simulations and laboratory studies right up to potentially risky, large-scale experiments in the real world. While most SRMGI participants were comfortable with low risk research, there was much debate over how to govern any research outside the lab," said the coalition's report, published on Thursday.

(By Hanna Gersmann, The Guardian, 01/12/2011)