Memorandum submitted by ETC Group (GEO
09)
1. The Action Group on Erosion, Technology
and Concentration (ETC Group) is an international civil society
organization headquartered in Canada with offices in the United
States, Mexico and the Philippines. ETC Group dedicated to the
conservation and sustainable advancement of cultural and ecological
diversity and human rights. To this end, ETC Group monitors the
societal impacts of emerging technologies, supports socially responsible
developments of technologies useful to the poor and marginalized
and we address issues related to international governance and
the concentration of corporate power.
2. ETC Group has been actively monitoring
developments in geoengineering for several years, publishing reports,
arranging seminars and undertaking international advocacy work
regarding geoengineering technologies. All of our publications
and news releases on geoengineering are available for download
at http://www.etcgroup.org/en/issues/geoengineering.Our publications
on this topic to date include:
1 Feb 2007"Gambling
With Gaia"A civil society introduction to Geoengineering.
January 2009"The better world
we seek is not Geo-engineered! A Civil Society Statement against
Ocean Fertilization".
April 2009"ETC Group Submission
to Royal Society Working Group on Geo-Engineering".
Sept 2009"The Emperor's New
Climate: Geoengineering as 21st century fairytale".
Dec 2009"Retooling the Planet?
Climate Chaos and the Copenhagen Process in the Geoengineering
Age".
3. ETC Group welcomes the news of the committee's
inquiry into geoengineering governance. We hope that the inquiry
will mark the beginning of a vigorous public and international
policy debate on this important topic. We would welcome the chance
to provide an oral submission to the committee.
4. ETC Group defines geoengineering to include
not only solar radiation management and sequestration of atmospheric
greenhouse gases (including methane, nitrous oxide and carbon
dioxide) but also weather modification techniques such as hurricane
suppression and cloud seeding. We encourage the committee to also
consider weather modification in this inquiry.
5. At the time that we are submitting this
evidence delegates at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
are negotiating in Copenhagen in an effort to make progress on
an agreement to bring about significant reductions in global greenhouse
gas emissions. The world's leading climate scientists agree that
a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is the world's best hope
for averting a climate catastrophe.[12]
Geoengineering must not distract from that goal.
6. Geoengineering could be seen by governments
and industry as a "time-buying" strategy and as an alternative
to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.[13]
We encourage the committee to reflect on the meaning of the strong
advocacy for geoengineering now coming from think tanks and industry-funded
groups who formerly denied the existence or significance of anthropogenic
global warming. ETC believes the prospect of geoengineering is
being deliberately used by some of these groups as an attempt
at distraction from tough action on greenhouse gas emissions reductions.
7. ETC Group believes that geoengineering
is the wrong response to climate change and that inadequate knowledge
of the earth's systems makes geoengineering, or even real-world
geoengineering experiments, too risky. We do not know if geoengineering
is going to be inexpensive for society, as proponents insistespecially
if geoengineering technologies don't work as intended, forestall
constructive alternatives or cause adverse effects. We do not
know how to recall a planet-altering technology once it has been
released.
8. In addition to unintended consequences,
geoengineering techniques could have unequal impacts around the
world (sometimes referred to as "spatial heterogeneity").[14]
As much as the Industrial Revolution's "inadvertant geoengineering"
(ie, human-induced climate change) has disproportionately harmed
people living in tropical and subtropical areas of the world,
purposeful geoengineering experiments could well do the same.
It is critical that those states and populations on the front
lines in the fight against climate change, particularly the most
vulnerable developing countries, be involved in a broad-based
and international debate.
9. It should be recognized that statesor
even corporationswith the technical and economic means
to "adjust the global thermostat" may be tempted to
do so. Geoengineering technologies warrant robust regulatory oversight.
In the absence of a multilateral framework and a global consensus,
any financial or political support for geoengineering technologies
would be irresponsible and would reinforce the lack of accountability
of industrialized countries for climate change and for the worsening
negative consequences in the global South.
10. ETC Group draws a "line in the
sand" at the lab door. We do not believe that it is warranted
to move geoengineering out of the laboratory and the most urgent
questions of governance concern keeping that lab door closed against
the pressures from industrial players to move to open air geoengineering
research and deployment.
11. We are extremely concerned by recent
proposals that a research programme on geoengineering be established
which might include real world experimentation of geoengineering
techniques. While modelling studies or other lab-based approaches
may be carried out safely it is irresponsible to move geoengineering
research out of doorsmost especially before global agreements
on governing such research have been agreed.
12. Committee members should distinguish
between very small scale experimentation for other purposes (eg
biochar for soil fertility research or ocean fertilisation to
investigate ocean biological processes) and experiments designed
to develop geoengineering technologies. We encourage the committee
to consider for example the proposal by Strong et al. in the journal
Nature that ocean fertilisation in particular should no longer
be pursued as a subject of geoengineering research.[15]
13. Climate systems are already unpredictable
and contain much "noise". For any research activities
on geoengineering techniques to have a noticeable impact on the
climate, they will have to be deployed on a massive scale, and
thus any unintended consequences are also likely to be massive.
We don't know how to recall a planetary-scale technology.
14. The experience of ocean fertilization
shows that any acceptance of small scale experimention will inevitably
slide to pressure for larger-scale experiments even if the results
are poor. Despite at least 13 smaller-scale ocean fertilization
experiments which failed to demonstrate the efficacy or safety
of the technique, there remains commercial and academic pressure
for larger tests. This pressure should be resisted and the wider
lesson applied to other geoengineering research.
15. OECD governmentswhich have historically
denied climate change or prevaricated for decades (and are responsible
for 90% of historic greenhouse gas emissions)are the ones
with the budgets and the capacity to execute geoengineering projects.
Will they have the rights and well-being of more vulnerable states
or peoples in mind?
16. It is possiblethough far from
certainthat some geoengineering techniques will be relatively
inexpensive to deploy. The technical capacity to attempt large-scale
climate interventions could be in some hands (of individuals,
corporations, states) within the next ten years. It is urgent
to develop a multilateral mechanism to govern geoengineering,
including establishing a ban on unilateral attempts at climate
modification.
17. Geoengineering interventions could lead
to unintended consequences due to mechanical failure, human error,
inadequate understanding of the earth's climate systems, effects
from future natural phenomena (eg, storms, volcanic eruptions),
irreversibility or funding lapses.
18. Many geoengineering techniques are "dual
use" (ie, have military applications). Any deployment of
geoengineering by a single state could be a threat to neighboring
countries and, very likely, the entire international community.
As such, deployment could violate the UN Environmental Modification
Treatyratified by the United Stateswhich prohibits
the hostile use of environmental modification.
19. Patent offices are already being inundated
with applications on geoengineering techniques. Monopoly control
of any deployed global geoengineering scheme would be unacceptable.
Nor do the issuance of patents make sense if indeed geoengineering
is being developed as an emergency response measure.
20. Commercial interests should not be allowed
to influence the research, development or deployment of geoengineering
technologies. If, as advocates insist, geoengineering is actually
a "Plan B" to be used only in a climate emergency, then
it should not be a profit-making endeavor. Further, it should
not be employed to meet emissions reduction targets.
21. The de-facto moratorium on ocean fertilization
agreed by 191 governments at the Convention on Biological
Diversity in May 2008 is the first truly global agreement
on geoengineering governance and we encourage the committee the
affirm the line agreed by the UK Government at the CBD that ocean
fertilization is not scientifically justified and should not proceed
to larger scale or commercial activities outside of national jurisdictions.
22. We would suggest that the Convention
on Biological Diversity might be an appropriate body for convening
global governance discussions on geoengineering under the auspices
of the UN since that treaty integrates biodiversity concerns with
impacts of such activities on livelihoods, justice and rights
of marginalized groups. We would caution against global governance
initiatives being handed to smaller bodies that are closed to
southern, indigenous and civil society participitation such as
the OECD, G8, G22 or The London Convention and London Protocol
on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and
Other Matter.
December 2009
12 See for example, IPCC, 2007: Summary for Policymakers.
In: Climate Change 2007: Mitigation. Contribution of Working
Group III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change [B Metz, O R Davidson, P R Bosch,
R Dave, L A Meyer (eds)], Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA. Back
13
See, for example, "Geo-Engineering: Giving us the Time to
Act," Institute of Mechanical Engineers (UK), August 2009,
available at http://www.imeche.org/ Back
14
UK Royal Society, Geoengineering the climate: science, governance
and uncertainty, 1 September 2009, p. 62; available on
the Internet: http://royalsociety.org/document.asp?tip=0&id=8729 Back
15
See Strong, Aaron; Chisholm, Sallie; Miller, Charles; Cullen,
John "Ocean fertilization: time to move on" Nature,
Volume 461, Issue 7262, pp. 347-348 (2009). Back
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