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Geo-engineering, Governance, and Social-Ecological Systems: Critical Issues and Joint Research Needs
Victor Galaz, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Sweden
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-04677-170124
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Abstract
The debate about the possibilities to engineer the Earth's climate has changed drastically in the last years. Suggestions of large-scale technological interventions to combat climate change that a decade ago would have been discarded as science fiction are slowly moving into the center of international climate change discussions, research, and politics. In this article, I elaborate three joint key challenges to geo-engineering research from a resilience perspective, with a special emphasis on governance issues. First, I discuss the need to understand geo-engineering proposals from a “planetary boundaries” perspective. Second, I elaborate why the notion of Earth stewardship and geo-engineering are not necessarily in conflict, but instead could be viewed as complementary approaches. Last, I discuss the critical need to explore an institutional setting that is strong enough to weed out geo-engineering proposals that carry considerable ecological risk, but still allow for novelty, fail-safe experimentation, and continuous learning. These issues are critical for our understanding of how to effectively govern global environmental risks, complex systems, and emerging technologies in the Anthropocene.Key words
Earth stewardship, geo-engineering, global environmental governance, innovation, planetary boundaries, resilience thinking
Ecology and Society. ISSN: 1708-3087