The perils of solar radiation management

WHEN megastar Shah Rukh Khan sang ‘Suraj hua maddham, chand jalne laga…’ in Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001), he probably didn’t know that engineers and climate scientists were actually contemplating reducing the intensity of solar rays, thereby lowering the temperature.

Advertisement

Twenty-two years later, not many in India would still know that all-out efforts are being made to convince Africa, a hot continent where the solar intensity is always high, the ‘immense potential’ that a solar geoengineering technology offers to reduce the heat by creating an artificial veil in the stratosphere so as to reduce the intensity of the sun’s rays.

The technique, called solar radiation management (SRM), aims at injecting the atmosphere with aerosols — tiny particles suspended in a gas form which reduce the heat intensity — or using giant mirrors to reflect the sunlight back. By reducing the load of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the SRM is being sold as a futuristic technology that will reduce soaring temperatures in Africa to make it relatively cooler.

An independent group of climate scientists and engineers, under the banner of Climate Overshoot Commission (nothing to do with the UN), is backing the questionable proposal; it plans to descend on Nairobi in May to draw the attention of the African leadership and, of course, heat up the media debate on how climate geoengineering will be beneficial for the otherwise hot continent. This reminds me of a weather-modification programme that the US had surreptitiously launched for a ‘cloud seeding’ plan that involved the Philippines, India and Vietnam. The arguments used subsequently before Senate hearings were equally promising.

But first, take a look at how a secret plan was enforced to use an untested technology. It was in 1966-67 that the then US President, Lyndon Johnson, had in consultation with the then newly elected Indian Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, sought clearance for the US Air Force to conduct cloud-seeding experiments in drought-hit Bihar.

Although the results were not encouraging, Johnson didn’t give up. After a study, ‘The Big Bad Fix: The case against climate geoengineering’, was published jointly by three internationally respectable non-profit organisations — ETC Group, Biofuelwatch and Heinrich Böll Foundation — Johnson pushed Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1969 to allow cloud-seeding experiments in the entire country for a ‘potential hurricane modification’. Despite the attempt not yielding any positive result, the cloud-seeding experiment was once again used in Vietnam to stop the march of the Vietnamese army, and it failed again.

The global uproar against weather modification experiments that followed resulted in the adoption (December 1976) of a UN Environmental Modification Convention. This convention imposed a ban on such techniques, and that included ‘techniques for changing…the dynamics, composition or structure of the earth, including its biota, lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere or of the outer space’ for military purposes (from Peter Frankopan’s new book The Earth Transformed: An Untold History). But then, there are ways to circumvent military application, with inscriptions like peaceful purposes of ‘humanitarian considerations’ for using such misplaced techniques. The book states that numerous private corporations and dozens of research institutions are engaged in such experiments with India, the Philippines, Taiwan, Chile, Mexico, Portugal, France, Italy, Argentina and Australia.

Coming back to solar geoengineering, nearly 400 scientists have in an open letter warned against the deployment of these techniques on a planetary scale, calling them not only dangerous but also frightening and inequitable. Seeking the promulgation of an International Non-Use Agreement on Solar Geoengineering, these scientists say a better solution would be decarbonisation of our economies, which is possible and feasible. In any case, pushing these radiation techniques shows that the world hasn’t learnt any lesson. Calling climate alteration an easy solution, the polluters simply want to go on harming the planet.

‘Business as usual’ is not the way forward. One of the best ways to decarbonise, in my opinion, is to move away from the global chase to attain a higher GDP. Although the latest Synthesis Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has spelt out the dos and don’ts to keep global temperatures within the prescribed limits, these suggestions run counter to what leads to a higher GDP, which is what the G7 and G20 countries prioritise. Unless the climate negotiations take bold steps to extend their reach over how and why the nations need to shift focus from treating GDP as a touchstone of development, I don’t think it will ever be able to contain the rise in temperatures.

The weather modifications that the SRM intends to usher in by dimming the incoming sunlight can upset the anthropogenic equilibrium and, thereby, have a devastating impact by way of disrupting monsoons, altering cropping patterns and causing unforeseen problems for the local and regional biodiversity. It can also lead to extended droughts and incessant rains.

All this will have a telling effect on the livelihood security of the region, something which has not been studied thoroughly so far. In any case, I fail to understand why scientists and industrialists (with billionaires like Bill Gates and George Soros backing it) are being so generous towards Africa. If they believe in this technology, shouldn’t they be first trying it out in the US to reduce the GHG concentration? After all, many studies have shown that large tracts of rich countries will become inhospitable once the climate worsens.

The disbursal of the aerosols in the atmosphere has to be a permanent feature unless, of course, some governments want it to be scrapped later, leading to a detrimental ‘termination shock’. The impact of the shock can vary, but to imagine solar geoengineering being attempted, for instance in a country like India under a public-private partnership, is simply scary, to say the least. There are more sensible and ethical solutions to keep climate from going topsy-turvy.