Many reasons to safeguard the polar regions from dangerous geoengineering

Continued greenhouse gases emissions are warming our planet, with catastrophic consequences for its habitability and the natural world. Rapid and deep decarbonization to "net zero" carbon dioxide emissions will be needed to halt global warming, and must be achieved by 2050 to stay within the 2015 Paris Agreement thresholds. However, the public debate is increasingly exposed to claims that technological geoengineering "fixes" could reduce projected climate impacts, including in polar regions where current and projected changes have severe and irreversible consequences locally and globally. 

As a community of polar and cryosphere scientists, we have evaluated five highly publicized geoengineering proposals that are either focused on the polar regions or would have major impacts on these systems: stratospheric aerosol injection, sea curtains/sea walls to prevent warm waters reaching glaciers and ice shelves, sea ice management through modifying albedo and thickening sea ice, slowing ice sheet flow through basal water removal and ocean fertilization. Based on our rigorous analysis of technological availability, logistical feasibility, cost, predictable adverse consequences, environmental damage, scalability (in time and space), governance, and ethics, we conclude that none of these geoengineering ideas pass an objective and comprehensive test regarding its use in the coming decades. Instead, many of the proposed ideas are environmentally dangerous. Furthermore, funds spent in researching these ideas further is divesting from much needed research on mitigation and adaptation to climate change and bestow unwarranted public credibility to these geoengineering schemes. We stress that given their feasibility challenges and risks of negative consequences, these ideas should not distract from the foremost priority to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and achieve successful adaptation.