Why Solar Geoengineering Research Is Now a Moral Imperative

Around the world, climate policy is stalling. We may be winning the long-term battle, but we are losing on the timescale that matters most for people already facing extreme heat, droughts, and displacement. So, what progress are we really risking by considering solar geoengineering?

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By Jake Schwartz

As we confront the aftermath of a disastrous COP30, we not only face a warming planet, but we also find ourselves approaching a crisis of hope. With new projections showing that our planet will warm to 2.5C over pre-industrial levels – a full degree over the Paris Agreement goal – and the United States nowhere to be seen, it is now clear: there is no one coming to save us. 

I am a lifelong climate activist working for Chesapeake Climate Action Network, a national progressive advocacy group that was intimately involved in passing Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). For the cynics among us, the afternoon the IRA was signed into law was a sad one. As much as it did, anyone who could do the math knew it didn’t do enough, quickly enough, to avoid the worst of the coming climate disasters. 

But not everything is doom and gloom. Clean energy technology is becoming more efficient, despite the Trump administration eviscerating tax credits and crippling projects. Carbon capture technologies, too, have developed at a startling rate, and climate scientists largely agree that they need to be part of the solution. However, those same scientists admit that these technologies will not be scaled up in time to help us avert the climate tipping points that we are rapidly approaching. We are already hitting tipping points that we thought were decades away. Many of them, such as melting permafrost in the Arctic, release more carbon and perpetuate the climate crisis, further lowering the odds of preventing the worst-case scenario.

So what other tools are at our disposal when – not if – temperatures continue to rise? Hundreds of climate scientists from around the world, including one of America’s most influential climate scientists, James Hansen, believe that solar geoengineering may be the only tool that could allow us to avoid these tipping points. 

Simply put, geoengineering, or sunlight reflective methods (SRM), is the concept of using a light-reflecting aerosol, such as those found in volcanic eruptions, to reflect 1-2% of sunlight in the stratosphere back into space. This could temporarily cool the Earth while we are still phasing out fossil fuels. The concept isn’t new: American scientists have been thinking about it since Benjamin Franklin speculated that a volcanic eruption in Iceland was the reason Paris was so brisk in 1784.

Critics often warn that SRM poses a moral hazard, arguing it could reduce the incentive to cut emissions. But the global energy market is already decarbonizing: clean energy is now cheaper and will soon outcompete fossil fuels entirely. However, around the world, climate policy is stalling. We may be winning the long-term battle, but we are losing on the timescale that matters most for people already facing extreme heat, droughts, and displacement. So, what progress are we really risking by considering SRM? 

As climate justice advocates, our moral priority should be protecting those communities today. If SRM can help prevent dangerous tipping points while we continue to decarbonize, it deserves serious consideration.

There are many other questions that SRM researchers need to answer – and it is time we devote public resources to determine what they are. At the same time, climate justice organizations must lead the way in creating a governance framework that puts the most vulnerable countries in the driver’s seat for conversations around SRM. 

Bill Gates made some misleading statements in his recent treatise on why the climate needs to be deprioritized, but he was right about one thing: the top priority for the climate movement should be the human impacts of climate change. We activists cannot succumb to groupthink or complacency – all ideas should be on the table. 

If scientists find that SRM can save more lives than breaching climate tipping points would take, and governance experts create a system where vulnerable countries can lead this conversation, then it is time for the climate movement to challenge our own orthodoxy. Especially as scientists discuss SRM methods that could be deployed specifically to prevent tipping points, SRM begins to look more plausible than many in the climate movement realize.

The recent COP summit in Brazil reminded us that another crisis we face is one of imagination. Let us not shy away from bold measures that could save us from a failure we have spent our entire lives fighting against. The stakes are simply too high. 

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About the author: Jake Schwartz is the Federal Campaigns Manager at Chesapeake Climate Action Network. A lifelong climate activist, last year he ran the Climate Voters Engagement program for the Biden-Harris campaign.