As global temperatures continue to rise, geoengineering – the deliberate manipulation of Earth’s climate system – is moving from the fringes of policy debate to the mainstream. The UK's recent authorization of outdoor 'sun-dimming' experiments demonstrates growing governmental willingness to explore controversial technologies as potential tools in the fight against the climate crisis. Australia, too, has been conducting cloud brightening experiments over the great barrier reef in recent years, and Germany has a process in place to consider marine geoengineering research. Private start-ups selling credits for lifting sulphur dioxide balloons in the atmosphere have also appeared – making it difficult to deny the growing momentum for this climate response strategy.
Once dismissed as science fiction, geoengineering is increasingly viewed as a potential ‘Plan B’ for avoiding the worst impacts of climate change. Carbon dioxide removal (CDR), an approach that seeks to extract CO2 from the atmosphere, already forms part of a majority of net-zero scenarios. Meanwhile, financial support for solar radiation management (SRM) – a much more controversial set of techniques that aim to reflect a portion of incoming sunlight back into space – is on the rise, and funding is flowing from philanthropies, venture capital and governments.
While there is significant debate among scientists on the merits and demerits of geoengineering as a response to climate breakdown, there is remarkably little public awareness that these developments are underway. The lack of democratic engagement on geoengineering is a major problem as it inhibits public accountability and spreads misinformation on the technology. This democratic deficit, rather than the merit of the technologies themselves, pose the arguably greater risk.
The normalisation of geoengineering raises profound ethical and political questions
It is important to point out that the exacerbating climate crisis is the driving motivation for the exploration of geoengineering research. Despite the existence of international climate law intended to lower greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere, we are patently failing to achieve this objective. The Mauna Loa Observatory logged a record CO2 concentration of 430PPM in May 2025, with consistent annual increases reflecting the long-term trend.
The consequence of this is a changing climate, exemplified most clearly by the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events around the globe. The Carbon Brief has been tracking attribution data for extreme weather events across individual studies assessing the climatic impact on intensity and frequency. It found that in a sample of over 750 extreme weather events, 74% were made more likely or intense because of climate change.
Exemplifying this, the 2025 monsoons and floods in Pakistan highlight the humanitarian impact and devastation these more intense events are able to inflict. A 15% intensity increase in this flood event has left more that 1000 people dead and thousands needing to relocate across Pakistan. Given this climate-induced insecurity, which is global in scale and not limited to singular events, it is hardly surprising to find that geoengineering is attracting more and more attention as a mechanism of response.
Carbon Dioxide Removal draws little controversy, already existing in the form of carbon sink restoration, namely repairing and supporting the health of green spaces, with many such plans forming part of the Paris Agreement’s Nationally Determined Contributions submitted by states. SRM on the other hand does not enjoy the same understanding and is highly controversial, stemming from a lack of scientific consensus.
Modelling SRM experiments in an open system like the earth is unpredictable and the potential destabilisation of the atmospheric composition might have unintended effects. Some of which could include the intensification of extreme weather events such as floods and droughts; the spread of communicable diseases; damage to air quality; and the bringing about of unwanted changes to precipitation patterns, effecting agriculture in regions that were far removed from the site of experiment. The possibility also exists that we miscalculate, reflecting too much light and super cooling the earth. Given such risks, pertinent questions must be thrust into the spotlight.
Who should decide if and when to use these technologies? What risks are acceptable, and to whom? Despite the monumental stakes, discussions on these issues remain confined to a narrow band of actors – mainly Western scientists, wealthy nations and powerful private interests.
Research is currently dominated by American and European scientists having access to funding and favourable policies. This concentration of expertise and lack of diversity creates challenges. It risks sidelining perspectives from developing regions – territories often most vulnerable to climate change and potential geoengineering experiments – by limiting their input on the experimental research that will impact them as much as anyone else on the planet. The local repercussions for these countries might be even more significant if scientists and companies start to seek experimental zones with less regulatory regimes, far away from Western population centres that might object. The concentration of research and funding risks fostering an echo chamber prone to ‘techno-optimism’, failing to capture the full ethical complexity of deliberately altering the Earth’s climate.
Compounding these concerns is the entanglement of geoengineering research with commercial interests. Some prominent researchers hold patents, run start-ups or have corporate ties, creating financial stakes in the promotion of climate engineering techniques. Though not universal, this entanglement raises questions about the objective assessment of risks and benefits.
The absence of global discussion on the subject and relative silence from UNEP or the IPCC means there is a lack of oversight in terms of monitoring experiments and keeping a close eye on where and who is carrying them out. A simple monitoring resource would be an important step in keeping stakeholders appraised of the research. In tandem, its absence means that there is yet more scope for those with vested interests to continue without global visibility.
Given the hazards, both moral and physical, posed by techniques like stratospheric aerosol injection to reflect sunlight, the public should be informed and able to engage in the discussion – yet public deliberation remains minimal. In the UK, for instance, the government committed £22 billion to carbon capture with virtually no public debate, in Parliament or elsewhere. The 2024 Labour Manifesto did reference investments in carbon capture, but geoengineering barely got a mention during the election campaign.
Transparency is also lacking when it comes to research funding and governance. In the UK, funding for SRM field trials was approved in spring 2025 by the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), a body set up in 2023. ARIA is exempt from usual procurement rules; funds are allocated by its directors with minimal peer review, and the agency is exempt from freedom of information legislation, bypassing public oversight and raising concerns about accountability.
In 2024, ARIA did attend the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee, but the enquiry was vague, more focused on its goals and broader modus operandi, as opposed to asking questions on the exact projects being pursued and the likely impact on the British electorate and global commons. The latter is of particular importance as ARIA-funded research is not restricted to UK territory, which means experiments could be conducted abroad where regulations might be less stringent.
In addition, geoengineering, if deployed, would require decades of sustained commitment and governance. Without broad societal legitimacy, research and deployment risk being derailed by backlash and may lead to premature rejection of potentially vital technologies. Already, public opposition has led to the cancellation of field trials in the UK and the US, whilst calls to create a UN expert panel on SRM were met with resistance by several countries opposing the ‘normalisation’ of geoengineering.
Addressing the democratic deficit demands action on several fronts
- First, anchor geoengineering research firmly in the public benefit. This means limiting the influence of commercial actors and ensuring researchers are free from vested interests such as a continuation of funding after a pilot project. Funding structures should be transparent, accountable and subject to public scrutiny.
Second, make the research more inclusive. A truly global community of research should shape the direction of geoengineering work. This diversity is essential to grapple with the complex distributional and justice implications of climate interventions. Attaining this inclusivity is challenging, but involvement from a neutral and global institution is an important beginning. The UNEP sits as the obvious choice to spearhead this ambition, and its head office located in Nairobi, Kenya gives it an added element of legitimacy in seeking to encourage the involvement of actors from both highly industrialized economies and developing regions.
The first step in achieving this inclusivity is to have UNEP’s governing authority, the World Environment Assembly, readdress the issue of geoengineering and table a resolution that plots a pathway of dialogue, cataloguing all current and pending outdoor experiments. From this, additional, more precise resolutions that are the outcome of debate and discussion could be brought forward in a way that balances competing perspectives.
Third, expand public deliberation. National governments need to bring geoengineering into the open by placing it on political agendas and encouraging societal discussion. Election manifestos could clearly identify positions on climate interventions, and citizens should have opportunities to weigh in on policy. Media outlets have a key role to play in making geoengineering comprehensible and contestable. Beyond technical explanations, they should provide platforms for dialogue between scientists, policymakers, activists and communities likely to be affected.
The importance of this cannot be overstated. The complexity attached to the climatic system in conjunction with geoengineering and the resulting consequences for the lives of everyday people mean it is easy for the message to get lost in translation. The abstraction of the climate threat and the possible geoengineering solution creates a barrier that prevents comprehension on the part of the public, and a failing of officials and politicians to develop clear relatable policy risks providing a vacuum for conspiracy and resistance to populate.
Geoengineering is a complex endeavour, but so is every technological breakthrough in human history. The crucial point is to keep the narrative open and fact-oriented, as opposed to closed and conspiracy-driven. Citizen’s assemblies could also be a powerful tool for deepening democratic governance. These representative ‘mini publics’ allow ordinary people to deliberate on complex issues, offering legitimacy and public input where top-down policymaking falls short. While not a silver bullet, these assemblies can help governments better align geoengineering policy with societal values, neutralise vested interests, and provide a mandate to act (or not to act) on controversial proposals.
Finally, make geoengineering governance global in scope. The UN should play a central role in convening inclusive, transparent and participatory governance frameworks. Establishing a UN-level expert panel on the governance of geoengineering, along the lines of the IPCC, could foster greater legitimacy through independent assessments of risks, geopolitical considerations and policy options.
The new Global Citizens Assembly, established under COP 30, could be a useful forum to air the global risks and rewards of geoengineering to people the world over. Of course, this option stands in contrast to the recent voting behaviour of states at the UN Environment Assembly, that prevented such a move. In order to navigate state hesitance, research could look into precisely why those against such intervention believe it is not in their interest. In doing so, their legitimate concerns can and could be factored into the argument for any further mediation.
Another option is to table a UN Environment Assembly resolution that seeks to monitor the embryonic development of this new technology before it becomes established. The problem here is that states pioneering it are unlikely to agree to external oversight, as the USA previously demonstrated in 2019.
Another possibility is that the UN Security Council (UNSC) be called upon to introduce a mandate on geoengineering. It has precedent in dealing with potentially dangerous technology in the form of nuclear capability. More recently the UNSC has held an open debate on artificial intelligence under the scope of maintaining international peace and security, charting a parallel pathway for geoengineering technology to at least be argued as something within its remit. The UNSC comes with shortcomings related to its permanent members and their worsening relations, but for the geoengineering topic this might not be so detrimental. Moreover, the UNSC’s handling of geoengineering would at least bring the debate into the open and allow further exploration of differing state perspectives and how to traverse them towards a safer evolution of this potentially dangerous but probably necessary endeavour.
Whatever the methods chosen to bridge the democratic deficit, a cultural shift is needed. Geoengineering may be a technological option, but it is first and foremost a political question about the kind of world we want to live in. As its possibilities become more real, we must ensure that the future of the planet is decided by all those who inhabit it.
This article has been authored by Ash Murphy, Senior Lecturer at Manchester Law School, Manchester Metropolitan University, and Mario Prost, Professor of International Law at Universite Libre De Bruxelles. Ash Murphy's research focuses on climate governance, international environmental law, and the intersections between law and global security. Mario Prost specializes in international legal theory, environmental justice, and the role of law in global governance. Both authors are known for their critical analyses of how legal frameworks shape global responses to environmental and security challenges.
Photo Credit from Nicholas Bullett on Unsplash.
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