Governance of Geoengineering

Professor Clive Hamilton, Charles Sturt University, will talk on "Governance of Geoengineering" at the Australian National University in Canberra, 4pm, 21 July 2011.

Seminar
Governance of Geoengineering

Research into geoengineering solutions to global warming is gathering pace, despite concerns that developing Plan B may reduce the pressure to pursue Plan A — cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

At present there is no legal impediment to any nation, or indeed any wealthy individual, attempting to transform the Earth’s climate through, for example, spraying sulphate aerosols into the upper atmosphere.

Attention is now being turned to the regulation of geoengineering research and possible deployment. In addition to official inquiries, the Royal Society is supporting the Solar Radiation Management Governance Initiative, due to report later this year. This seminar will survey the issues and consider the unique difficulties presented by regulation of solar radiation management, and other proposed geoengineering methods.

Clive Hamilton of Charles Sturt Professor of Public Ethics at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics and has recently returned from a visiting position at the University of Oxford where he researched the ethics of geoengineering. He is the author of Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth about Climate Change and is a member of the Royal Society’s SRMGI.

Speaker/Host: Clive Hamilton/RegNet
Date: Thursday, 21 July 2011
Time: 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM ...