* Exploration of solar geoengineering faces ongoing pushback
* Additional $900,000 provided for developing world research
* Critics say sun dimming too risky and should be banned
By Allister Doyle, Thomson Reuters Fondation, Feb 8th 2023
Stepping into a “minefield” about how to slow global warming, scientists in developing nations have won new funds to study whether dimming sunshine by mimicking volcanic eruptions can be a sufficiently safe way to temporarily cool a hotter planet.
Research into “solar geoengineering”, perhaps using planes or balloons to spray sun-reflecting sulphur into the stratosphere, has made scant progress despite alarm over rising temperatures and a sluggish global shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy. [...]
Pascal Lamy, the former head of the World Trade Organization who chairs a commission looking at what to do if temperatures overshoot the 1.5C limit, predicted hard choices ahead as the planet heats up, bringing harsher weather extremes.
“Even if there are obvious risks (in SRM), there are also enormous risks in global warming too,” he said. “It is risk against risk”.
Lamy’s Climate Overshoot Commission, whose members include former presidents of Mexico and Kiribati, will issue a report late this year.
When it comes to considering the use of SRM, “I have the impression of walking on a field of landmines,” he said.
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