Annex A
ADDITIONAL SCIENTIFIC
BACKGROUND PROVIDED
BY NERC
In preparing its contribution to this submission,
NERC held discussions with its environmental research centres,
including the National Centre for Atmospheric Sciences (NCAS),
the National Oceanography Centre Southampton (NOCS), Plymouth
Marine Laboratory (PML), the British Geological Survey (BGS),
the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) and the Centre for Ecology
and Hydrology (CEH). Additional comments arising from or endorsed
by those discussions are provided here.
1. The feasibility of geo-engineering warrants
attention on the basis that such an approach might `buy time'
or provide a future safety net. However, geo-engineering alone
is unlikely to provide a sustainable, long-term solution to climate
change. That is because the scale of geo-engineering interventions
would need to be increased year-by-year to keep up with increased
emissions (currently rising at more than 3% pa), and that ocean
acidification would continue unabated if no measures are taken
to limit the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide.
2. Furthermore, there are concerns that
over-optimistic reliance on geo-engineering might prove to be
chimeric and diversionary. Thus attention given to "technological
fixes" could attract resources and effort away from more
fundamental ways of tackling the problem of global warming, through
a rapid transition to a low-carbon economy.
3. In paragraph 9 of the main text, four
(bulleted) criteria are given for the evaluation of geo-engineering
options. The first of these-the unambiguous demonstration of net
benefit-is likely to be highly demanding, with major investments
needed to scale-up from proof-of-concept to pilot trials and full
deployment. The use of state-of-the-art climate models, including
a range of biogeochemical feedback processes, is clearly necessary
for "safe" global-scale testing, to quantify potential
benefits and assess the risk of undesirable impacts. A secure
assessment of the full impact of geo-engineering solutions requires
a comprehensive Earth System Model. Such models (which must include
for example the land surface, atmospheric chemistry) are still
in their infancy but are in active development within NERC (in
collaboration with other bodies such as the UKMO). Currently such
models do not adequately represent regional climate and its variability.
High resolution regional models will be needed to complement field
trials, to verify that intended effects did not arise for other
reasons. It is a priority research area to improve and assess
these models. But model behaviour can never fully replicate real-world
behaviour; at full scale-up, it would be prudent to expect the
unexpected. Hence the importance of the third criteria-that the
manipulation is controllable, and can be easily stopped if net
benefits are not achieved.
4. The final bullet in paragraph 9 provides
the overall bottom line: "global planning permission"
will undoubtedly be needed for schemes of sufficient scale to
be climatically effective. As yet, the ethical and legal frameworks
for purposeful climatic manipulation do not exist, and their development
is unlikely to be straightforward.
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