What if a rogue country darkened the Sun in order to prevent a climatic catastrophe?

 What if a rogue country darkened the Sun in order to prevent a climatic catastrophe?

In a well-known sci-fi book, a desperate government disobeys international law and releases aerosols into the atmosphere in an effort to cool the planet. Could that really occur?

W

What if the effects of climate change were so severe that one nation defied international law to safeguard its citizens? That situation has previously occurred in literature. 20 million people perish as a result of severe temperatures, according to Kim Stanley Robinson's 2020 book Ministry for the Future, which starts with a terrible heatwave in India that sets off a catastrophe of unprecedented proportions. The nation's authorities decide to take extraordinary action by unilaterally darkening the Sun since they cannot allow such a danger to happen again. 

Over the course of seven months, fleets of Indian aircraft continuously release sizable aerosol plumes into the atmosphere. The mixture of sulphur dioxide and other chemical particles then gradually spread over the northern hemisphere and "eventually everywhere" from there. 

The particles operate as a planetary umbrella, simulating the effects of massive volcanic eruptions, by reflecting sunlight back into space. The planet cools as the sky becomes whiter and redder. The controversial action, as the novel depicts it, violates international law and endangers the monsoon rains, but it also lowers world temperatures by "one degree, for three years."

According to Robinson's hypothetical scenario, India's rogue use of solar geoengineering proves to be mostly benign and provides more time for expanding emissions reductions. But in the actual world, it is still very speculative and fraught with danger that such a deus ex machina technology could ever be used securely.

What environmental and geopolitical effects may result if a rogue country did decide to really lower the Sun? And is the secure use of such technology really a realistic objective? 

For a non-use agreement on solar geoengineering, especially for small-scale outdoor experiments like the unauthorized test carried out by a San Francisco start-up in Mexico earlier this year, more than 440 scientists signed an open letter in January. They contend that since the side effects are unexpected and the existing system of global governance is "incapable" of ensuring fair and effective management, development may promote "normalization" of the technology as part of global climate policy. Numerous scholars and civil society organizations fear that its cooling impact might lead to a "moral hazard" by relieving pressure on efforts to reduce underlying CO2 emissions.

De facto deployment has been halted as a consequence of these worries, and a field test that was supposed to take place over Sweden was postponed due to opposition. Greta Thunberg said "When you're in a hole, stop digging" to describe her concern that solar geoengineering would perpetuate a global connection built on extraction and exploitation. "A crisis generated through lack of respect for ecology will most likely not be solved through advancing that lack of respect to the next level."

How to Blow Up a Pipeline author and assistant professor of human ecology at Lund University, a public institution in Sweden, Andreas Malm, concurs. "The worst-case scenario for the usage of geoengineering," he claims, "is that you have it followed by business as usual just continues with the purchase of fossil fuels and their infrastructure -- and carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise."

Robinson's book simultaneously creates a worldwide military conflict against fossil fuel capital, as Malm noted in 2021, and the solar geoengineering project. Malm worries that without this additional incentive to decarbonize, people would be too inclined to put off emission reductions. He still has this dread now. "The more I've read on the above, the more that I'm convinced that this invention has such extraordinary potential for harm and annihilation that I don't think I will ever personally accept or advocate," he states.

WARM ECLIPSES

This Saturday, the Sun will be obscured over most of the Americas, which will result in a slight dip in local temperatures. An annular solar eclipse caused by the Moon crossing in front of the Sun will occur instead of geoengineering.

In 2020, a similar eclipse crossed India, and researchers discovered that it had an impact on the weather in eight locations. In addition to a brief cooling impact brought on by a significant reduction in solar radiation, wind speeds decreased and humidity levels increased. Less surface ozone, an air contaminant, was also a result of the decrease in sunshine.

However, in the three years after Robinson's book was published, global emissions have been increasing, worsening everything from devastating floods to unheard-of heatwaves. The Northern Hemisphere saw the warmest summer on record, and the world's temperature increased significantly once again in September.

In light of these increases, some experts contend that decarbonization may need to be accompanied with emergency solar geoengineering. In the US, a national research program on solar radiation modification, or SRM as the technique is often called, was endorsed by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine last year. A study that looked at what a government financed research program may involve was published this year by the White House. Additionally, billionaires and US IT companies are funding additional research in the private sector.

Numerous scientists argued for the need for additional study in an alternate open letter that was released this February and was organized by Sarah Doherty, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington. Additionally, there are more and more requests for a more unambiguous international agreement on regulations. The EU has urged for international discussions on the hazards, whereas the UN Environment Program has noticed a "dearth of data" on effects.

Robinson highlighted to that his book was not a plan, saying, "I abjure prediction, or even prescriptions." Robinson's work has helped spark a lot of debate. However, he also emphasized the need of taking "emergency actions" to lessen the harm brought on by burning carbon, such as looking into alternatives to solar geoengineering and finding new means to finance decarbonization. "I disagree to anyone saying 'Oh we are unable to try to fix things because it will encourage fossil fuel supporters to keep breaking things!' We're past that juncture now. The sense of emergency is intensifying year every year."

So how would it really appear?

From marine cloud brightening, which involves injecting sea salt aerosols into low-lying clouds to increase their reflectivity, to cirrus cloud thinning, which involves injecting ice nuclei into high clouds to shorten their life span along with allow more heat to escape into space, alternative methods of solar geoengineering are all currently vying for attention. The concept for a worldwide effect that has received the most research is the injection of stratospheric sulfate aerosol by aircraft. The technique has the potential to quickly and affordably decrease temperatures. Start-up expenses are compared to "the price of a Hollywood blockbuster" in one estimate from 2013. A more recent estimate of operating expenses comes in at around $18 billion (£16 billion) annually.

In contrast to Robinson's book, research supports a somewhat different technological vision, with experts recommending a considerably slower build up, deployment, and decline. According to one research, stratospheric injections should start about 2030, peak 50 years later, and then gradually decrease over the next two millennia. According to one analysis, injections will begin in 2035 and last at least until 2100; according to another, the time frame would be between 245 and 315 years.  

Because particles return to Earth after roughly a year, a run-time that is too short won't provide any cooling. A "termination shock" might occur, however, if prolonged releases terminate suddenly, releasing deadly pent-up heat from emissions whose effects have only been covered up and not eliminated. 

David Keith, director of climate systems engineering at the University of Chicago (and creator of a Canadian firm producing carbon removal methods), is one of the most well-known advocates for further study. Keith has emphasized that solar geoengineering should not be used as a substitute for mitigation, but rather to assist in keeping global temperatures rise below the critical 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, which the World Meteorological Organization estimates will be overshot by 2027 66% of the time.

"A fleet of several hundred large high-altitude jets of a type that does not currently exist" would be needed for stratospheric aerosol injection.

In addition, Keith and others have emphasized the rising danger that climate change poses to the world's poorest people, particularly those in the Global South, much like Robinson did in his book. They mention that there is "an obligation" to take action to lessen this damage as well as a "moral obligation to carry out solar geoengineering research." "We have to deal with a catastrophe and really're trying to survive. What other options do we have?" said Anote Tong, the former president of the Kiribati islands, which are collapsing, in an interview with the website Climate Home this year.

Wake Smith, a climate specialist at the Yale School of the Environment and a former aviation industry specialist, claims that a country in the Global South is not likely to use the technology. Smith said that "a fleet of several hundred large high-altitude jets of a type that does not currently exist" would be needed for stratospheric aerosol injection. Millions of tons of chemicals would need to be released by all of these specialized aircraft at a height of around 20 kilometers (66,000 feet). According to Smith, only the US, UK, France, Russia, or China, as well as maybe Germany or Japan, could construct such fleets. "No other state is technologically capable, as well as is vastly too big for individuals or organizations to pursue."

Additionally, Smith argues that India cannot bring about the type of global cooling envisioned in Robinson's book. Aerosols emitted over northern India would be dispersed by the planet's rotation into a ring around the Earth, where they would be carried to the North Pole by a circulation of the atmosphere system known as the Brewer Dobson Circulation and then fall, directly cooling the northern hemisphere solely. In order to try to balance the consequent shift of weather systems, Smith thinks that an analogous southern hemisphere deployment would also be required. Given these extensive geophysical effects, Smith argues that any rogue country would be unlikely to work alone for very long before being discouraged or joined by others.

Can any negative impacts be foreseen?

But even if a future superpower with advanced technology could proceed with deployment, it doesn't follow that they would or ought to. In addition to the potential for it to impede attempts to cut emissions, there are a variety of other environmental risks that might arise. In her 2021 book Under A White Sky: The Nature of the Future, Elizabeth Kolbert described how humanity's efforts to harness nature had resulted in a number of unexpected catastrophes. She thinks that solar geoengineering's advantages could be essential at some time, but history shows it would be stupid to hold out hope for anything less than terrifying repercussions.

Can scientists thus forecast what these potential environmental effects could be? As of now, models and simulations indicate that stratospheric aerosol injection may have an effect on anything from the jet stream's location to the occurrence of localized droughts. A possible prolonged loss of Arctic summer sea ice has been noticed in one research, while a "considerable reduction" in monsoon rainfall has been noted in another. Furthermore, even if routinely used, crops might still suffer. 

One of the most serious consequences is damage to the ozone layer, which protects the atmosphere. There were "shortcomings" in the effect modeling for solar geoengineering, according to a 2022 UNEP study on its depletion. Additionally, the technique would not prevent the acidification of the waters brought on by growing CO2 concentrations.

How detrimental may these impacts be? Karen Rosenlof, a senior scientist in Chemical Science Laboratory of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is a member of a team of researchers examining the atmospheric effects of various aerosol-based phenomena, including volcanic eruptions, satellite re-entry, and rocket emissions. She points out that although these examples may all be used to learn about the "possible impacts" of intentional aerosol injection, the effects of various aerosols with varied characteristics (sulphate, soot, organic carbon, and metals) vary. Along with where, when, how much, and at what heights the toxins are discharged. 

Due to the erratic nature of volcanoes, there is likewise no counterpart for continuous emission. neither a thorough understanding of how the many components of the climate system interact. Rosenlof emphasizes that there is "a lot of uncertainty" in the situation. 

What would happen to the world?

As the aforementioned points out, not all of solar geoengineering's impacts are evenly dispersed; what can be a welcome decrease in rainfall in one location may result in a devastating drought in another. Some argue that because of the unequal distribution of affects, any effort to dull the Sun unilaterally would likely be thwarted by more potent neighbors. Or that only countries with the necessary geopolitical size, audacity, and bravado would ever dare to deploy. The US is the most likely candidate in such a situation, according to Frank Biermann, professor of global sustainability governance at Utrecht College in in the Netherlands and collapse of the Earth System Governance Project: "If a significant number of countries object against the deployment... the political cost for any country to do it independently is extremely high." 

But the worst-case possibilities are many if one or more nations continue regardless of these tensions. According to Biermann, the use of countermeasures with "difficult to predict" outcomes might include anything from economic sanctions to UN action and perhaps military combat. Another scenario is that a technological arms race starts as a result of opposing superpowers producing similar technologies. 

The worst-case possibilities are many if one or more nations proceed despite tensions.

In order to avoid this, according to Biermann, you would need to prevent the technology from developing to the point that nuclear weapons did, maybe via the non-use pact he and others have suggested. The Chemical Weapons Convention is a model that won the Nobel Peace Prize and attempts to stop the development and deployment of chemical weapons.

But what if a number of countries—or the whole world—decided to take coordinated action? There could be a situation when Smith's deployment promotes the interests of most people. He asserts that the "most plausible scenario" for deployment is an intensifying climate disaster that causes a large exodus of people from the south to the north because the north is reluctant to provide the assistance the south needs. "While multiple, competing implementation programmes are a possibility, the financial rewards in this case actually promote a single, global programme," according to him. "Existing political structures are not ideally suited to govern this, but neither are they well-suited to trapping thousands of millions of people in faltering industries against their will."

Another item to consider is how viable a "single, global programme" really is. Keith has mentioned possible analogies in the Internet, air traffic management, and international central banking. Others cite the Paris Agreement, which was created as a consequence of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, in which countries agreed to set a cap on global temperatures. (Though the world is now on course to miss the precise benchmarks this agreement has established).

Meanwhile, a constantly universally unified effort is just not a scenario that appeals to skeptics. In the case of any longer-term deployment, preventing "termination shock"—where halting too quickly unleashes catastrophic warming—would need excluding a wide range of all-too-likely scenarios, including terrorists shooting down flights, war, pandemics, and even natural catastrophes. 

Olaf Corry, professor of global security problems at Leeds University in the UK, claims that there just isn't adequate modeling of the geopolitical repercussions at this time. Contrarily, military strategists and retired generals have told Corry that examination could be seen as an act of animosity and that they are concerned about other powers acquiring it. "The scientists are good people, alongside they're modelling [the physical impacts], nevertheless in their model-world, there isn't any geopolitics." Imagine a Russian invasion of Ukraine, but with the ability to disable a system that produces weather throughout the world.

Conspiracy theories, false information, and a really challenging atmosphere for science to function would all be extraordinarily possible.

He asserts that deployment runs the danger of "infecting" the rest of climate politics and creating a whole new space for misinformation about the causes of the changing weather. "All of the relationship between science and society has become strained after Covid," Corry asserts. "So you would have an extraordinary potential for deception and for misinformation, therefore an incredibly difficult atmosphere for science to do its job."

In addition, there are the issues of equality and justice. Shuchi Talati of the US charitable organization The Alliance for Just Deliberation on Solar Geoengineering is striving to raise awareness and "ensure that climate vulnerable communities and nations, mostly in the Global South, have access to information, knowledge, and resources" regarding the technique. She anticipates that in turn, "robust governance frameworks" may be jointly created.

However, despite more knowledge, the possibility of Global South countries creating the technique is lower due to the size and technology needed, as well as the fact that they already have a smaller presence in international organizations including the UN Security Council. According to Silvia Ribeiro of the Action Group on Erosion Technology for Concentration, which tracks the effects of new technology, the voices of the most vulnerable countries would likely still be suppressed. If a government from the Global South deployed widely, it "would lead to so many geopolitical conflicts that no country from the Global South would be able to handle."

A director at the non-profit The center for the International Law of the Environment in Washington, DC, named Lili Fuhr, claims that the technology "requires governance systems that are significantly more sophisticated than that which has ever existed and that would have been operational over centuries or millennia - a near-impossible requirement."

Others, like Kim Stanley Robinson himself, continue to be optimistic. The severity of the climate disaster is depicted in his book Ministry for the Future as giving rise to a violent worldwide resistance movement against fossil fuels. Robinson recently said on a Bloomberg podcast that the world seems "less dark" today than it did when he was writing the book, and that would explain why such drastic steps are not necessary.

Robinson told BBC Future that as the frequency of climate disasters is rising, so is the global movement to take action. "My impression is that the worldwide epidemic shocked people into an entirely novel level of awareness that the planet's health matters and can severely disrupt humanity – we saw it happen." 

Robinson continues, "all possible means" will be required to remove CO2 from the atmosphere since the likelihood of exceeding the 1.5C limit is still high (but not yet unavoidable). "We might have to try various methods organized under the word 'geoengineering' to cool things as soon as we can, while our decarbonization process proceeds. Groups like C2G and Silver Lining as well as TerraPraxis, and I assume many others, are working to stimulate these discussions to prepare the public for potential responses, and I think the widespread hope is that if we manage to accomplish such things it will be by way of international arrangements and general consensus." 

Robinson, however, is not persuaded by claims that solar geoengineering will hold down decarbonization efforts: "I think we're past that moment. The imperative to decarbonize ASAP is just too clear now. Any climate skeptics left are frauds or fools," he said.