Incorporating Ethics into Climate Intervention Research, Experimentation, and Potential Deployment

Climate change requires urgent action. Aggressive actions toward carbon emissions reduction must remain the primary strategy for reversing and addressing climate change. However, increasingly the world is considering technology-based climate intervention approaches—often called climate engineering. There are major practical and ethical questions about the significant risks and potential trade-offs some of these approaches would bring and how they would be measured against the risks of our warming world. Recognizing the need for guiding principles in this fast-moving, dynamic space and building on AGU’s longstanding history of advancing and advocating for strong scientific ethics, AGU is facilitating the development of a draft Ethical Framework for Climate Intervention Research, Experimentation, and Deployment. The ethical framework will be released in 2024 and will serve as a resource to help governments, researchers, NGOs, and the private sector make responsible decisions when engaging in climate intervention research or policy. In 2023, the draft framework completed a rigorous three-month public comment period and consultation process to include more holistic input from other scientists and ethicists, as well as community voices, youth advocates, and many more. This presentation will highlight the ethical principles and how the science community can incorporate and advocate for ethics in climate intervention research.