1 Geoengineering Methods and RisksEdward P. Richards, JD, MPH Clarence W. Edwards Professor of Law LSU Law School, Climate Change Law Project Blog -

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3 Geoengineering StrategiesClimate Engineering Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) Solar Radiation Management (SRM) Alkalization of the ocean (limestone) Actually adaptation, but considered climate engineering in the literature and research Adaptation Levees Coastal Restoration Riverine Drainage Projects Water Relocation Projects

4 Natural Climate EngineeringSummary of the widespread influence of the 1991 Pinatubo eruption on the lower and upper atmosphere, land, and ocean. The upper panel of each box describes the immediate effects of the eruption, and the lower panel lists the longer‐term effects (i.e., months to years). NPP denotes Net Primary Productivity. CO2 drawdown is the net transfer of atmospheric carbon dioxide into the ocean driven by iron‐enhanced photosynthetic carbon fixation, as speculated by Sarmiento [] and Watson [], with respect to Pinatubo and as observed for another volcanic eruption by Hamme et al. []. Note that unlike the Pinatubo eruption, the beneficial fertilization effects on the ocean may not occur with any proposed stratospheric engineering as the aerosols used would likely not contain iron. For data sources, see the discussion of this figure in the main text. IF THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN PROVIDED BY OR IS OWNED BY A THIRD PARTY, AS INDICATED IN THE CAPTION LINE, THEN FURTHER PERMISSION MAY BE NEEDED BEFORE ANY FURTHER USE. PLEASE CONTACT WILEY'S PERMISSIONS DEPARTMENT ON OR USE THE RIGHTSLINK SERVICE BY CLICKING ON THE 'REQUEST PERMISSIONS' LINK ACCOMPANYING THIS ARTICLE. WILEY OR AUTHOR OWNED IMAGES MAY BE USED FOR NON-COMMERCIAL PURPOSES, SUBJECT TO PROPER CITATION OF THE ARTICLE, AUTHOR, AND PUBLISHER. Earth's Future Volume 4, Issue 11, pages , 24 NOV 2016 DOI: /2016EF

5 Was breaking the taboo on research on climate engineering via albedo modification a moral hazard, or a moral imperative? Trends in scientific publications on climate engineering (number of publications per year, indexed in Web of Science). Source: Oldham et al. [] IF THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN PROVIDED BY OR IS OWNED BY A THIRD PARTY, AS INDICATED IN THE CAPTION LINE, THEN FURTHER PERMISSION MAY BE NEEDED BEFORE ANY FURTHER USE. PLEASE CONTACT WILEY'S PERMISSIONS DEPARTMENT ON OR USE THE RIGHTSLINK SERVICE BY CLICKING ON THE 'REQUEST PERMISSIONS' LINK ACCOMPANYING THIS ARTICLE. WILEY OR AUTHOR OWNED IMAGES MAY BE USED FOR NON-COMMERCIAL PURPOSES, SUBJECT TO PROPER CITATION OF THE ARTICLE, AUTHOR, AND PUBLISHER. Earth's Future 24 FEB 2017 DOI: /2016EF

6 Why the Explosion of Interest?Ramp up of projected risks from warming such as sea level rise. Growing concern with tipping points Impossibly of creating binding and enforceable international agreements Limits of the Paris agreement Growing subnational resistance in the US Election of Trump E.P.A. Chief rejects consensus view of climate change

7 Climate Engineering StrategiesVaughan, Naomi E., and Timothy M. Lenton. "A review of climate geoengineering proposals." Climatic change (2011):

8 Research for assessment, not deployment, of Climate Engineering: The German Research Foundation's Priority Program SPP 1689 Update of the “blob” diagram of the Royal Society [] report that assessed individual CE ideas with respect to the dimension's effectiveness (vertical), affordability (horizontal), timeliness (blob size), and safety (color). Arrows indicate the direction of change in the assessment by new studies since the Royal Society report. Abbreviations in blue refer to the first letters of the first author's name and year of the respective publication of the Priority Program [Ilyina et al., 2013; Humpenöder et al., 2014, 2015; Moosdorf et al., 2014; Aswathy et al., 2015; Mengis et al., 2015, 2016; Saxler et al., 2015; Bonsch et al., 2016; Sonntag et al., 2016 in addition to references cited elsewhere in the paper], all provided in the reference list of this article. IF THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN PROVIDED BY OR IS OWNED BY A THIRD PARTY, AS INDICATED IN THE CAPTION LINE, THEN FURTHER PERMISSION MAY BE NEEDED BEFORE ANY FURTHER USE. PLEASE CONTACT WILEY'S PERMISSIONS DEPARTMENT ON OR USE THE RIGHTSLINK SERVICE BY CLICKING ON THE 'REQUEST PERMISSIONS' LINK ACCOMPANYING THIS ARTICLE. WILEY OR AUTHOR OWNED IMAGES MAY BE USED FOR NON-COMMERCIAL PURPOSES, SUBJECT TO PROPER CITATION OF THE ARTICLE, AUTHOR, AND PUBLISHER. Earth's Future Volume 5, Issue 1, pages , 24 JAN 2017 DOI: /2016EF

9 Towards a comprehensive climate impacts assessment of solar geoengineeringAn assessment of the risks and benefits of scenarios of future climate change, including the deployment of solar geoengineering, must account for projected environmental hazards and the exposure and vulnerability of populations to those hazards. Some hazards will arise directly from anthropogenic GHG emissions, and others directly from the deployment of solar geoengineering, but the climate response will depend on both. Differences in exposure and vulnerability across sectors and regions must be considered when evaluating impacts. An impacts assessment of the potential benefits and risks of deploying solar geoengineering must consider many socioeconomic factors beyond solely the changes in the climate. IF THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN PROVIDED BY OR IS OWNED BY A THIRD PARTY, AS INDICATED IN THE CAPTION LINE, THEN FURTHER PERMISSION MAY BE NEEDED BEFORE ANY FURTHER USE. PLEASE CONTACT WILEY'S PERMISSIONS DEPARTMENT ON OR USE THE RIGHTSLINK SERVICE BY CLICKING ON THE 'REQUEST PERMISSIONS' LINK ACCOMPANYING THIS ARTICLE. WILEY OR AUTHOR OWNED IMAGES MAY BE USED FOR NON-COMMERCIAL PURPOSES, SUBJECT TO PROPER CITATION OF THE ARTICLE, AUTHOR, AND PUBLISHER. Earth's Future Volume 5, Issue 1, pages , 24 JAN 2017 DOI: /2016EF

10 Indicators and metrics for the assessment of climate engineeringResults of a literature survey of climate engineering studies investigating solar radiation management (SRM, yellow), terrestrial carbon dioxide removal (CDR, green) and marine CDR (blue). Studies that investigate various methods are shown in gray. The size of each circle refers to the number of studies that used the respective indicator (ranging from 3 for sea level to 64 for surface air temperature), colors indicate the relative proportion of the studies referring to the specific classes of CE method(s). Indicators are located approximately in the physical space they refer to. IF THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN PROVIDED BY OR IS OWNED BY A THIRD PARTY, AS INDICATED IN THE CAPTION LINE, THEN FURTHER PERMISSION MAY BE NEEDED BEFORE ANY FURTHER USE. PLEASE CONTACT WILEY'S PERMISSIONS DEPARTMENT ON OR USE THE RIGHTSLINK SERVICE BY CLICKING ON THE 'REQUEST PERMISSIONS' LINK ACCOMPANYING THIS ARTICLE. WILEY OR AUTHOR OWNED IMAGES MAY BE USED FOR NON-COMMERCIAL PURPOSES, SUBJECT TO PROPER CITATION OF THE ARTICLE, AUTHOR, AND PUBLISHER. Earth's Future Volume 5, Issue 1, pages 49-58, 13 JAN 2017 DOI: /2016EF

11 What are the risks? Vaughan, Naomi E., and Timothy M. Lenton. "A review of climate geoengineering proposals." Climatic change (2011):

12 What are the Geopolitical Issues?An appraisal of five geoengineering methods (two SRM [stratospheric aerosols and cloud whitening] and three CDR) using four categories of geopolitically relevant ranking criteria. Each category has several subcategories, and more color within a panel of the figure represents less geopolitical risk for a particular method for a particular subcategory. The layout of the figure follows that used by Boyd [] to assess the efficacy, risk, cost, and rapidity of these five geoengineering methods. Note that this ranking is viewed as preliminary, and not definitive, due to the many unknowns in the field of geoengineering and how they might mesh with geopolitical concerns. Furthermore, it is problematic to incorporate the effects of anthropogenic climate change (i.e., business‐as‐usual CO2 emissions) onto many of these metrics, such as participation and dispersal. IF THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN PROVIDED BY OR IS OWNED BY A THIRD PARTY, AS INDICATED IN THE CAPTION LINE, THEN FURTHER PERMISSION MAY BE NEEDED BEFORE ANY FURTHER USE. PLEASE CONTACT WILEY'S PERMISSIONS DEPARTMENT ON OR USE THE RIGHTSLINK SERVICE BY CLICKING ON THE 'REQUEST PERMISSIONS' LINK ACCOMPANYING THIS ARTICLE. WILEY OR AUTHOR OWNED IMAGES MAY BE USED FOR NON-COMMERCIAL PURPOSES, SUBJECT TO PROPER CITATION OF THE ARTICLE, AUTHOR, AND PUBLISHER. Earth's Future Volume 4, Issue 11, pages , 24 NOV 2016 DOI: /2016EF

13 What are the Geopolitical Risks?Unilateral action What is the appropriate forum for coordinating and disciplining geoengineering strategies with extra- national effects? Winners and Losers Is China the best candidate for unilateral action? What if the monsoon fails in India? Capture by the Military Industrial Complex There are huge contracts at issue The national security card trumps all opposition

14 Geoengineering for Adaptation

15 Types of Projects Protection from climate related extreme weather events Levees Coastal Restoration Riverine Drainage Projects Water Management Dams and river reengineering Water distribution systems We will focus on geoengineering for extreme weather events

16 Levees and Riverine DrainageLimited risk envelope of extreme weather to justify the CBA (both money and land use costs) for construction 100/500 year events Limited adjustment for climate and other anthropogenic risk enhancers Predictable megaproject risks Overstated benefits and understated costs Problems in large scale quality control Extreme difficulty in long term maintenance of performance specifications

17 The Escalator/Levee EffectShift from high frequency, low severity flooding to low frequency, high severity flooding. Channel contraction increases height of the flood Channel confinement reduces alterative path flows Adaptation to frequent, low severity flooding Low height building elevation Water resistant construction Low population density Adaptation to low frequency, high severity flooding High population density No adaptation, leading to catastrophic losses during events.

18 Coastal Restoration

19 Dune Restoration – Outer Banks

20 Living Shoreline - Louisiana

21 Marsh and Land Creation

22 Why is Coastal Restoration Impossible?Coasts retreat inland during sea level rise Deep paleoclimate/geology record Current rates of sea level rise are enough to force retreat, and projected rates exceed previous natural rates. Deltas follow sea level Retreat inland during rising sea level – all are about 6k years old Go to the continental shelf during glacial maximum Coastal restoration denies the effects of climate change.

23 The Special Problem of SubsidenceDeltas subside as part of the natural cycle Dams and levees reduce the sediment to fill the increased accommodation space Faults create hot spots of subsidence, hastening the conversion to open water Ground water pumping exacerbates subsidence Levees on the delta exacerbate subsidence behind the delta Subsidence increases relative sea level rise to extreme levels.

24 The Risks of Coastal RestorationThe escalator effect from creating a false sense of security, especially for wetlands creation, which does not reduce major storm surge Hastened destruction of the existing ecology systems Huge carbon footprint for dredging projects Most of the cost is fuel All are must be continually repeated Shifts money away from real protection and long term relocation.