'Slippery slope' or 'uphill struggle'? Broadening out expert scenarios of climate engineering research and development
'Slippery slope' or 'uphill struggle'? Broadening out expert scenarios of climate engineering research and development
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DOI：
10.1016/j.envsci.2018.01.021
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发表时间：
2018-05-01
影响因子：
6
通讯作者：
Healey, Peter
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Bellamy, Rob;Healey, Peter
人们越来越认识到，如果不采用大规模技术来消除大气中的温室气体或将阳光反射到地球以外，就不可能履行《巴黎协定》规定的气候变化义务。在这篇文章中，我们报告的调查结果的情景方法，旨在询问多远，这些“气候工程”的想法可能会在未来发展，在什么样的治理安排。与以往的研究在气候工程的远见，狭隘地集中在学术观点，一个单一的气候工程的想法和一个有限的范围内的问题，我们的方法试图回应理论的必要性，“扩大”和“开放”的研究方法应用于高度不确定性和模糊的主题。我们与来自英国政府、工业、民间社会和学术界的气候变化和气候工程专家以及来自巴西、德国和印度的其他专家举行了为期一天的活动。与会者应邀为四个气候工程设想制定情景：生物能源与碳捕获和储存、直接空气捕获和储存、平流层气溶胶注入和海洋云增亮。确定了未来研究的多种挑战，将这些情景与气候工程研究的早期描述形成鲜明对比，这些研究威胁着可能的防御，锁定和路径依赖的“滑坡”，这将无情地导致部署。因此，我们认为，气候工程的治理挑战今天应该被认为是一个“上坡斗争”，而不是一个滑坡，有一个越来越明显的需要治理，负责任地激励，而不是限制，研究。我们发现，通过引入一个有效的全球碳价格和直接的政府支出的研究和开发的激励措施，影响市场进程具有广泛的潜在应用气候工程。负责任地激励研究将涉及治理安排和政策工具的多元化架构，既顾及集体抱负，也顾及国家差异，并产生于一个包容和反思的进程。
It is increasingly recognised that meeting the obligations set out in the Paris Agreement on climate change will not be physically possible without deploying large-scale techniques for either removing greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere or reflecting sunlight away from the Earth. In this article we report on the findings of a scenarios method designed to interrogate how far these 'climate engineering' ideas may develop in the future and under what governance arrangements. Unlike previous studies in climate engineering foresight that have narrowly focussed on academic perspectives, a single climate engineering idea and a restricted range of issues, our approach sought to respond to theoretical imperatives for 'broadening out' and 'opening up' research methods applied to highly uncertain and ambiguous topics. We convened a one-day event with experts in climate change and climate engineering from across the sectors of government, industry, civil society and academia in the UK, with additional experts from Brazil, Germany and India. The participants were invited to develop scenarios for four climate engineering ideas: bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, direct air capture and storage, stratospheric aerosol injection and marine cloud brightening. Manifold challenges for future research were identified, placing the scenarios in sharp contrast with early portrayals of climate engineering research as threatening a 'slippery slope' of possible entrenchments, lock-ins and path dependencies that would inexorably lead to deployment. We suggest that the governance challenges for climate engineering should therefore today be thought of as less of a slippery slope than an 'uphill struggle' and that there is an increasingly apparent need for governance that responsibly incentivises, rather than constrains, research. We find that affecting market processes by introducing an effective global carbon price and direct government expenditure on research and development are incentives with broad potential applications to climate engineering. Responsibly incentivising research will involve a pluralistic architecture of governance arrangements and policy instruments that attends to collective ambitions as well as national differences and emerges from an inclusive and reflexive process.