Alan Robock’s reason number 15 of 20 reasons why geoengineering may be a bad idea is the “commercial control of technology”. He questions the motives of companies that could potentially hold patents for earth changing technology; “whose benefit would they have at heart?” when such companies “often value shareholder profits over the public good.” It is a valid point but I don’t think that Robock takes it far enough.
Ian McEwan’s recent novel Solar, tells a story of Prof. Michael Beard, a Nobel prize winning physicist, and his endeavours into alternative energy sources. His motivation stems from scientific curiosity, a desire to reinvigorate his career and tarnished reputation as well as the financial gains. Saving the planet is a bonus that helps him to bolster his reputation and ego. Beard’s colleague in the venture expresses concern that global warming is not real and the planet is actually cooling: “If the place isn’t hotting up, we’re fucked” to which Beard replies: “It’s a catastrophe. Relax!”
***SPOILER ALERT***
The novel ends in a patent dispute that sees the equipment at the launch site destroyed and the whole projected halted pending legal action.
The motivation to tackle climate change consistently takes a back seat to the commercial viability and financial rewards of the project. While Solar is a work of fiction the attitudes and motives that are described do exist in reality. I don’t mean to infer that all climate and energy research should be rooted in planetary concern and humanitarianism but if a planetary crisis becomes an opportunity for financial gain the integrity of the entire endeavour may be compromised.
More than that, the planetary solution becomes something that can be bought, something that wealthy individuals/nations could invest in and potentially own; in this case control of the global thermostat goes to the highest bidder. It is also clear that a situation of global winners and losers would be perpetuated; backing geoengineering can distract from mitigation efforts and would allow wealthy groups to maintain the environmentally-degrading status quo that helped to make them so wealthy in the first place.
Billionaire Richard Branson launched the Virgin Earth Challenge in 2007; he offered US$25 million “for an environmentally sustainable and economically viable way to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.” The 11 finalists have been selected. The competition explicitly excluded any project that sought to reduce emissions since projects that do not remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere are outside the scope of the Virgin Earth Challenge.
Bill Gates is a prominent financial backer of geoengineering. He finances the Fund for Innovative Climate and Energy Research (FICER) which is managed by Dr. Ken Caldeira and Dr. David Keith, two prominent geoengineering advocates. The fund has provided approximately US$4.5 million for 13 various research projects, including US$1.1 million each for the research projects of Drs. Caldeira and Keith.
Gates is also a private investor in Keiths company Carbon Engineering (CE). CE aims to commercialise and deploy industrial-scale carbon capture technology as a tool to tackle climate change.
While research into geoengineering should only help the world to make an informed decision as to how we can tackle climate change, it is clear that this research is almost entirely in the hands of wealthy nations and groups. Whether or not the motives of such nations and groups are humanitarian, decisions regarding the implementation of geoengineering belong to the entire global community and should require considerable international debate and negotiations. There must be a suitable legal and political framework in place so that geoengineering plans are subject to independent scrutiny and not shareholder concerns.
