Sean Low

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Wageningen University & Research | WUR · Environmental Policy Group

In recent years, carbon removal and associated net-zero energy technologies have emerged as serious options for policymakers and scientists to consider when trying to address climate change. How, where, and when to use these options effectively, however, is polemic, and research examining the social or justice dimensions of deployment—actual or pro...

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) – the creation, enhancement, and upscaling of carbon sinks – has become a pillar of national and corporate commitments towards Net Zero emissions, as well as pathways towards realizing the Paris Agreement’s ambitious temperature targets. In this perspective, we explore CDR as an emerging issue of Earth System Governance...

Novel, potentially radical climate intervention technologies like carbon dioxide removal and solar geoengineering are attracting attention as the adverse impacts of climate change are increasingly felt. The ability of publics, particularly in the Global South, to participate in discussions about research, policy, and deployment is restricted amidst...

Carbon removal is emerging as a pillar of governmental and industry commitments toward achieving Net Zero targets. Drawing from 44 focus groups in 22 countries, we map technical and societal issues that a representative sample of publics raise on five major types of carbon removal (forests, soils, direct air capture, enhanced weathering, and bioene...

Solar geoengineering maintains a vocal presence as a stop-gap measure in assessments of climate and sustainability action. In this paper, we map prospective benefits and risks, and corresponding governance approaches, regarding three major proposals for solar geoengineering (stratospheric aerosol injection, marine cloud brightening, and a space-bas...

Climate intervention technologies such as carbon dioxide removal and solar geoengineering are becoming more actively considered as solutions to global warming. The demographic aspects of the public serve as a core determinant of social vulnerability and the ability for people to cope with, or fail to cope with, exposure to heat waves, air pollution...

Some experts contend that addressing global climate challenges requires consideration of technologies such as Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) and, possibly, Solar Radiation Modification (SRM). Previous studies, primarily centered on the OECD region, have indicated that most of these technologies are contentious, eliciting low levels of public support....

Purpose – This article explores three operations and supply chain management (OSCM) approaches for meeting the 2°C targets to counteract climate change: adaptation (adjusting to climatic impacts); mitigation (innovating towards low-carbon practices); and carbon removing negative emissions technologies (NETs). We suggest that adaptation nor mitigati...

As emerging methods for carbon removal and controversial proposals around solar radiation modification are gaining traction in climate assessments and policy debates, a better understanding of how the public perceives these approaches is needed. Relying on qualitative data from 44 focus groups (n = 323 respondents), triangulated with a survey condu...

The need for public engagement is increasingly evident as discussions intensify around emerging methods for carbon dioxide removal and controversial proposals around solar geoengineering. Based on 44 focus groups in 22 countries across the Global North and Global South (N = 323 participants), this article traces public preferences for a variety of...

Solar geoengineering (also known as solar radiation modification) is garnering more attention (and controversy) among media and policymakers in response to the impacts of climate change. Such debates have become more prominent following the first-ever field trials of stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) in 2022. How the lay public perceives solar...

Public perception of emerging climate technologies, such as greenhouse gas removal (GGR) and solar radiation management (SRM), will strongly influence their future development and deployment. Studying perceptions of these technologies with traditional survey methods is challenging, because they are largely unknown to the public. Social media data p...

Given the inadequacy of current patterns of climate mitigation, calls for rapid climate protection are beginning to explore and endorse potentially radical options. Based on fieldwork involving original expert interviews (N = 23) and extensive site visits (N = 23) in Australia, this empirical study explores four types of climate interventions spann...

Institutional theory, behavioral science, sociology and even political science all emphasize the importance of actors in achieving social change. Despite this salience, the actors involved in researching, promoting, or deploying negative emissions and solar geoengineering technologies remain underexplored within the literature. In this study, based...

The scientific literature on the co-impacts of low-carbon energy systems—positive and negative side effects—has focused intently on climate mitigation, or climate adaptation. It has not systematically examined the prospective co-impacts of carbon removal (or negative emissions) and solar geoengineering. Based on a large sample of diverse expert int...

The impacts of global climate change on international security and geopolitics could be of historic proportion, challenging those of previous global threats such as nuclear weapons proliferation, the Great Depression, and terrorism. But while the evidence surrounding the security impacts of climate change is fairly well-understood and improving, le...

This article discusses and illuminates the synergies and jeopardies or tradeoffs that exist between the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and net-zero or future climate protection options such as greenhouse gas removal (GGR) technologies and solar radiation management (SRM) deployment approaches, respectively. Through a large-scale expert-int...

In global climate governance, anticipatory assessments map future options and pathways, in light of prospective risks and uncertainties, to inform present-day planning. Using data from 125 interviews, we ask: How are foundational experts contesting the conduct of anticipatory assessment of carbon removal and solar geoengineering – as two emerging b...

Negative emissions technologies and solar radiation management techniques could contribute towards climate stability, either by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it permanently or reflecting sunlight away from the atmosphere. Despite concerns about them, such options are increasingly being discussed as crucial complements to t...

Large-scale and highly experimental interventions are being considered as strategies to address climate change. These include carbon dioxide removal approaches that are becoming a key pillar of post-Paris assessment and governance, as well as the more controversial suite of solar geoengineering methods. In this paper, we ask: Who defends and oppose...

In this study, we utilize a large and diverse expert interview exercise (N = 125) to critically examine the whole systems justice issues associated with ten negative emissions and ten solar geoengineering technologies. We ask: What equity and justice concerns arise with these 20 options? What particular vulnerable groups could be affected? What ris...

Direct Air Capture with Carbon Storage (DACCS) technologies represent one of the most significant potential tools for tackling climate change by making net-zero and net-negative emissions achievable, as deemed necessary in reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the European Green Deal. We draw from a novel and original datas...

Carbon removal-also known as negative emissions technologies, or greenhouse gas removal-represents a core pillar of post-Paris climate policy, signaling for enhancing and constructing carbon sinks to balance emissions sources on route to ambitious temperature targets. We build on Amory Lovins' "hard" and "soft" alternatives for energy pathways to i...

Deliberations are underway to utilize increasingly radical technological options to help address climate change and stabilize the climatic system. Collectively, these options are often referred to as “climate geoengineering.” Deployment of such options, however, can create wicked tradeoffs in governance and require adaptive forms of risk management...

Space-based geoengineering is gaining attention, if not necessarily traction, as a possible "break the glass" solution to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change and facilitate the transition to a low-carbon future. Though still on the periphery of discussions around climate mitigation and geoengineering, space-based methods that would deflect...

As the technical and political challenges of land-based carbon dioxide removal (CDR) approaches become more apparent, the oceans may be the new “blue” frontier for carbon drawdown strategies in climate governance. Drawing on lessons learnt from the way terrestrial carbon dioxide removal emerged, we explore increasing overall attention to marine env...

This thesis explores recent proposals for novel carbon sinks (carbon removal) and planetary sunshades (sunlight reflection) – often treated as forms of climate engineering, or deliberate and large-scale climate interventions. I examine sunlight reflection and carbon removal as case studies of emerging sociotechnical strategies in climate governance...

An era (2005-2015) centered around the Copenhagen Accord saw the rise of several immature socio-technical strategies currently at play: carbon capture and storage, REDD+, next-generation biofuels, shale gas, short-lived climate pollutants, carbon dioxide removal, and solar radiation management. Through a framework grounded in governmentality studie...

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is rising up the climate-policy agenda. Four principles for thinking about its role in climate policy can help ensure that CDR supports the kind of robust, abatement-focused long-term climate strategy that is essential to fair and effective implementation.

Climate change is a paradigmatic example of systemic risk. Recently, proposals for large‐scale interventions—carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and solar radiation management (SRM)—have started to redefine climate governance strategies. We describe how evolving modeling practices are trending toward optimized and “best‐case” projections—portraying deploy...

Sunlight reflection and carbon removal proposals for “climate engineering” (CE) confront governance challenges that many emerging technologies face: their futures are uncertain, and by the time one can discern their shape or impacts, vested interests may block regulation, and publics are often left out of decision‐making about them. In response to...

How are novel energy, technology, and land-use systems strategies for limiting climate change judged to be 'feasible'? Controversy has arisen around the research community behind integrated assessment modeling (IAM) scenarios used in the Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This regards the role played by an unproven...

Making sense of the implications of climate engineering approaches (solar radiation management, SRM; and carbon dioxide removal, CDR) at planetary scales occurs via a host of methods that calculate, project, and imagine the future in distinct ways. We take a systemic and synthesizing view of some of the (inter)disciplinary methods by which these fu...

*This anthology is a community effort: a curation of working papers and commentaries gathered between 2012 and 2016 (it was published in present form in 2018). If you are looking for a cutting-edge examination of sunlight reflection (SRM) and carbon removal (CDR), or 'geoengineering', much research has since emerged. But this book is a snapshot of...

Despite extensive efforts, greenhouse gases continue to be emitted in vast amounts, with potentially devastating consequences around the world. This is why targeted interventions in the climate system, known collectively as ‘climate engineering’, are receiving increased attention. Proposed approaches are often divided into two groups: those intende...

Despite extensive efforts, greenhouse gases continue to be emitted in vast amounts, with potentially devastating consequences around the world. This is why targeted interventions in the climate system, known collectively as ‘climate engineering’, are receiving increased attention. Proposed approaches are often divided into two groups: those intende...

Our project seeks to assess the significance – both in terms of threats and opportunities – of this new issue for the global climate regime complex, the various political actors involved and the various stakeholders in this process, many of whom are likely still unidentified. In this paper we present an adjusted version of Red Teaming that we have...

With greenhouse gas emissions continuing to escalate, recent years have seen a growing discussion on climate engineering (CE) – an array of proposed methods for manipulating the global climate in order to moderate or forestall the effects of climate change. Research has expanded rapidly and while it has become clear that CE cannot serve as a direct...

Since solar radiation management (SRM) technologies do not yet exist and capacities to model their impacts are limited, proposals for its governance are implicitly designed not around realities, but possibilities – baskets of risk and benefit that are often components of future imaginaries. This paper reports on the project Solar Radiation Manageme...

This piece examines the need to interrogate the role of the conceptions of the future, as embedded in academic papers, policy documents, climate models, and other artifacts that serve as currencies of the science-society interface, in shaping scientific and policy agendas in climate engineering. Growing bodies of work on framings, metaphors, and mo...

We examine the claim that in governance for solar climate engineering research, and especially field tests, there is no need for external governance beyond existing mechanisms such as peer review and environmental impact assessments that aim to assess technically defined risks to the physical environment. By drawing on the historical debate on reco...

This report details a Solar Geoengineering Scenarios Workshop that drew together a multidisciplinary collection of 17 academic and practitioner experts for one and a half days to explore possible futures for solar geoengineering technologies using established scenario planning methods. This report outlines the methods that were employed, and docume...

Geoengineering - the deliberate and technological manipulation of the climate system to forestall the worst effects of global warming (also referred to as climate engineering) - has recently emerged as a novel and controversial issue in climate governance. It is sometimes proposed as an insurance policy, should either (a) primary efforts to develop...