Global Scans · Geoengineering · Weekly Summary

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A global catastrophic risk is a hypothetical future event that has the potential to damage human well-being on a global scale. Some events could cripple or destroy modern civilization. Any event that could cause human extinction is known as an existential risk.

• Europe should ban the use of geoengineering methods to tackle climate change over concerns that the untested methods could lead to unintended consequences. Engineering and Technology Magazine
• The European Commission has recognized the urgent need for global conversation on the risks and regulation of geoengineering technologies. DevX
• Once solar geoengineering is employed, the world could be dependent on it for generations to compensate for the warming effects of carbon that could remain in the atmosphere for several centuries. The Boston Globe
• One reason that solar geoengineering has received attention recently is because the world has been slow to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, threatening to push global temperatures past the aspirational limit set by the Paris climate agreement. Mother Jones
• Climate impacts during overshoots could be reduced or masked by the deployment of solar geoengineering intervention techniques that would temporarily cool the planet. Nature
• A geoengineering technique designed to reduce high temperatures in California could inadvertently intensify heatwaves in Europe. The Guardian
• The warmer our planet becomes, the more attractive geoengineering seems as a way to slow or endure the effects of climate change - and the less accurately we can predict its effects. The Atlantic
• In what is being touted as the last ditch effort to control the vehemently rising temperatures of the Earth's surface, scientists will dry the upper atmosphere, also known as geoengineering. Mint
• A robust system of global governance will be necessary to ensure that any future decisions about using solar geoengineering are made for collective benefit. GPS News
• Even if solar geoengineering does help the world on average, it could still have negative effects, such as harming the protective ozone layer, disturbing regional rainfall patterns, undermining agriculture productivity, and changing the distribution of infectious diseases. MIT Technology Review
• ARIA is setting up programs for developing synthetic plants and exploring climate interventions that could cool the planet, including solar geoengineering. MIT Technology Review
• Solar geoengineering could come with an array of unintended consequences, including negative effects on precipitation and other weather patterns around the world and possible damage to the Earth's ozone layer. Scientific American
• Known as solar geoengineering, SRM is the controversial idea that deliberately modifying the atmosphere to reflect some of the sun's rays back into space could help cool a warming planet. Eco-business
• The basic concept behind solar geoengineering is that by spraying certain particles high above the planet, humans could reflect some amount of sunlight back into space as a means of counteracting climate change. MIT Technology Review
• The basic concept behind solar geoengineering is that the world might be able to counteract global warming by spraying tiny particles in the atmosphere that could scatter sunlight. The CDO TIMES
• The European Commission recognizes the urgent need for global conversations on the risks, regulation, and potential deployment of geoengineering technologies due to their possible dangers. DevX
• Global South publics express greater concern that climate-intervention technologies could undermine climate-mitigation efforts, and that solar geoengineering could promote an unequal distribution of risks between poor and rich countries. Nature
• By 2034 humans will have begun deliberate, large-scale geoengineering of the planet to reduce the impacts of climate change or achieve other goals. Atlantic Council
• Solar geoengineering has the potential to impact the production of PV energy by decreasing the amount of solar radiation that reaches the Earth's surface. SpringerLink
• The risks of solar geoengineering are poorly understood and can never be fully known. TNW | Sustainability
• Research has shown that the hugely controversial idea of solar geoengineering - using technology to mitigate the effects of global warming - could possibly prevent catastrophic sea level rises, by slowing melting in West Antarctica. Yahoo News
• Solar geoengineering involves reflecting some of the sun's radiation back into space, which could, in theory, help cool the planet, counteracting the warming caused by greenhouse-gas emissions. MIT Technology Review
• Discontinuing solar geoengineering could trigger a catastrophic termination shock, causing global temperatures to rise so fast that humans and ecosystems could not adapt. Jordan Times

Last updated: 26 March 2025