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Tackling Climate Change
I. Introduction
Climate engineering (CE) can take the form of car-
bon dioxide removal (CDR) and radiation manage-
ment technologies (RM) – two potential approaches
to addressing climate change. While some CDR
technologies such as reforestation are already
implemented in climate policy, RM is at an embry-
onic stage. Many agree that the question – to use or
not to use – needs to be confronted at some point in
the future. The ideal type of governance has been
discussed by others1(for a discussion of ethical and
other arguments see Gardiner2and Preston3).
CCLR 2| 2013 125
Tackling Climate Change: Where Can the
Generic Framework Be Located?
Matthias Honegger*, Kushini Sugathapala** and Axel Michaelowa***
International negotiations on climate change under the UNFCCC are increasingly
burdened by the gap between low political will to engage in emissions mitigation
and the level of mitigation required for limiting warming to 2°C. Given the growing
understanding that mitigation will be insufficient, adaptation has recently gained in
importance – a step sometimes seen as a portent of other actions on climate yet to come
such as climate engineering. Existing international treaties such as the Convention on
Biodiversity or the London Convention limit climate engineering interventions but do not
provide clear guidance for acceptable solutions. Given their objectives – preserving
biodiversity and the integrity of oceans – are jeopardised by insufficient action on
climate change, they should become more specific in this regard and avoid conflicts with
other conventions.
The UNFCCC could pursue any approach in line with the overarching principle in
Article 2 of the Convention – to achieve “stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentrations
in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference
with the climate system”. An interpretation beyond reductions of anthropogenic
emissions could include climate engineering in form of carbon removal and radiation
management technologies: The former can directly contribute to the stabilisation of
greenhouse gases. The latter could help to limit indirect emissions from e.g. melting per-
mafrost soils, and reduce the risks from higher level of greenhouse gas concentrations.
Some climate engineering researchers argue against expanding the UNFCCC’s scope. As
it is the only significant framework mandated to prevent dangerous climate change, we
argue that it can, should, and is likely to become the forum to govern the use of climate
engineering technologies.
* Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and Perspectives,
Switzerland.
** Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies,
Geneva.
*** University of Zurich and Perspectives, Switzerland.
1 Dan Bodansky, Governing Climate Engineering: Scenarios for
Analysis (Cambridge, Mass.: The Harvard Project on Climate
Agreements, 2011), 11
2 Stephen M. Gardiner, “Some Early Ethics of Geoengineering
the Climate: A Commentary on the Values of the Royal Society
Report”, 20 Environmental Values (2011), 163.
3 Christopher J. Preston, “Ethics and Geoengineering: Reviewing
the Moral Issues Raised by Solar Radiation Management and
Carbon Dioxide Removal”, 4 WIREs Climate Change (2013), 23.
While costs of CDR technologies – just like other
mitigation technologies – to a large extent occur
locally,4the positive and possibly negative impacts
of RM – such as changes in rainfall and wind pat-
terns – are most likely to occur on a regional or
global scale. Given that RM costs are likely two
orders of magnitude below those of conventional
mitigation technologies,5a small group of countries
with high vulnerability to climate change might
invest in RM and ignore impacts on other countries.
Lack of regulation of RM could thus lead to an over-
provision of RM.5Different types of regulation may
thus be required for both CDR and RM – to foster
deployment of CDR technologies without major
negative impacts and limit use of RM with negative
impacts. The international legal environment is cur-
rently only concerned with those technologies to
the degree that they affect biodiversity or the dump-
ing of waste in oceans. The only supranational body
mandated to address dangerous climate change –
the United Nations Framework Convention on Cli-
mate Change (UNFCCC) – would seem the natural
place to regulate CE, yet it has not done so, and it is
also increasingly seen as dysfunctional.
The challenge of regulating CE can be generally
categorised in three tasks:
1. Deciding which technologies to pursue in order
to reduce the overall threat of climate change;
2. Preventing uni- or plurilateral, deployment of CE
with negative regional or global impacts;
3. Coordinating CE research, developing modes of
deployment including appropriate monitoring
programs and developing alternative or correc-
tive measures in case e.g. the natural system
responds in an unexpected way.
These three tasks will apply at different points in
time and may be subject to repeated revisions as the
technologies, preferences and knowledge of poten-
tial impacts will change over time.
Despite design and implementation of some
promising policy mechanisms, their effectiveness
and scale has suffered under extremely low ambi-
tion for mitigation due to lacking political prioriti-
sation. Global greenhouse gas emissions have been
rising apace in the past few decades, virtually ensur-
ing that temperatures will rise above the 2 °Celsius
target established by the Parties to the UNFCCC.
Given the non-linear nature of climate change, and
the time lag between emissions and their climate
impacts, it seems likely that in the near future an
increase in extreme weather events and related
damage could lead to a rapid growth of public con-
cern and political will for action on climate change.
Reductions of GHG emissions, by their nature,
reduce the strength of future impacts. Political
demand for alternative action with immediate
effect could thus quickly emerge. While some of
that demand may be met with appropriate adapta-
tion and compensation (see later comment on “Loss
and Damage”,6impetus for more fundamental inter-
ventions, such as RM, may grow in the next few
decades.
This article explores the question whether CE
can, and is likely to be regulated under the
UNFCCC. It does so by providing some background
on the need for regulation, and discussing existing
conventions that affect CE technologies. Moreover,
it presents an interpretation that would place RM
clearly within the UNFCCC’s scope. It goes on to
discuss why the UNFCCC would be a plausible host
for negotiations on CE. We close with a discussion
of effects that negotiations of RM could have on the
dynamics of climate policy under the UNFCCC and
beyond.
II. Background
In order to address the question whether CE is
likely to be regulated through the UNFCCC we need
a more differentiated definition of the various tech-
nologies that fall under CE: In line with a modified
version of the typology of five responses to danger-
ous climate change7presented in Table 1 this article
uses the following terms: Mitigation is understood
as measures to keep atmospheric GHG concentra-
tion below a level defined as dangerous.
Tackling Climate Change
126 CCLR 2| 2013
4 Some interference in oceans may come with global risks as
they may affect ocean currents, cause methane or nitrous oxide
emissions or even come with a termination problem, see Andreas
Oschlies et al., “Climate Engineering by Artificial Ocean
Upwelling: Channelling the Sorcerer’s Apprentice”, 37(4)
Geophysical Research Letters (2010), L04701.
5 Scott Barrett, “The Incredible Economics of Geoengineering”,
39(1) Environmental and Resource Economics (2008), 45.
6 Draft decision -/CP.18, Approaches to Address Loss and Damage
Associated with Climate Change Impacts in Developing Countries
that are Particularly Vulnerable to the Adverse Effects of Climate
Change to Enhance Adaptive Capacity, UN Doc.
FCCC/CP/2012/L.4/Rev.1, 8 December 2012.
7 Clare Heyward, “Situating and Abandoning Ge-oengineering:
A Typology of Five Responses to Dangerous Climate Change”,
46.01 PS: Political Science & Politics (2013), 23.
Tackling Climate Change
This can be achieved by reducing GHG emissions,
enhancing sinks or actively removing carbon diox-
ide (CDR). RM increases the planet’s albedo and
thus reduces the immediate risks under higher GHG
concentration levels. Under certain circumstances,
RM also can affect GHG levels indirectly. In the fol-
lowing section we will discuss the reasons for regu-
lation of CE and then present three multilateral
treaties that could be the basis for such regulations.
1. Regulation and CE
Why do we need regulation for CE? We discuss the
reasons for applying CE for mitigation.
a. RM: Why Self-regulation Does Not Work
Game-theoretic analyses of the incentive structures
of RM are in their infancy, but it is clear that the
incentive structure will be very different from GHG
reductions and CDR due to the extremely low direct
costs to achieve an immediate cooling effect 5Thus
it could be argued that RM may allow self-regula-
tion of the climate change problem. We contest that
view, because there is not one single optimal global
average temperature. Once any major power can
control the Earth’s thermostat, the global tempera-
ture will be driven by many conflicting interests
and always remain contested. For example, a low-
latitude country surrounded by shallow seas might
be interested in lowering global temperature in
order to increase its territory,while Greenland might
want to maximise warming to access resources
buried under its ice sheet. In the absence of any
decision making structure, nations might deploy
whatever technology they can develop at whatever
level seems appropriate to their interests. This
could result in the proliferation of competing meas-
ures, consequently rendering any monitoring, pre-
diction or correcting efforts worthless. Unlike emis-
sions reductions efforts, RM is not a linear process,
where efforts can simply be superimposed, but a
highly sensitive, systemic intervention that requires
coordination.
Many alternative forms of governance of CE
could be imagined. All of them would arguably
require some democratic elements such as legiti-
macy, transparency and accountability in order to
gain the credibility and global support required to
prevent counteracting interventions. As it has been
pointed out8it is very unlikely that a weak nation or
coalition would implement and sustain RM, which
would harm other nations without counteractions
or other interventions from the harmed. The ques-
tion is thus whether a decision outside of any supra-
national body could result in an agreement that
would be supported by the relevant entities and
thus could be sufficiently stable over time.
b. CDR: Higher Economic Efficiency of GHG
Reduction and Removal
Adding CDR technologies to the portfolio of actions
will increase economic efficiency of mitigation.
This would become highly important once low-cost
CCLR 2| 2013 127
8 Katharine L. Ricke, Juan B. Moreno-Cruz and Ken Caldeira,
“Strategic Incentives for Climate Geoengineering Coalitions to
Exclude Broad Participation”, 8 Environmental Research Letters
(2013).
Table 1: Typology of Five Actions on Climate Change (based on, cf. footnote 7)
abatement measures are exhausted. Introducing
support measures for CDR technologies would
allow states to exploit their respective learning
curves and reduce costs of implementation. Unless
a massive technological breakthrough happens,
costs would still remain at a level that makes GHG
mitigation a global public good.
2. Existing Conventions
There is broad agreement that the current interna-
tional legal framework is insufficient for the regula-
tion of CE as the existing treaties have not been
designed with CE in mind. The absence of a frame-
work that allows to differentiate between desired
and undesired technologies relevant for climate
change – with the exception of the Clean Develop-
ment Mechanism (CDM) under the UNFCCC which
excludes certain technologies – highlights the
immediate need to close the governance gaps with
regards to CE. It seems uncertain whether use of
a specific CE technology could be prohibited –
the Convention on Biodiversity might at present
come closest to such a ban as almost any changes in
climatic conditions affect biodiversity, while the
London Convention and Protocol put into place
limitations on ocean fertilisation.
a. Convention on Biological Diversity
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) aims
at the conservation of biological diversity.9RM and
in some instances CDR could severely threaten this
goal. Article 14 of the CBD might be used in the con-
text of planned RM, as a government is to utilise
“appropriate procedures requiring environmental
impact assessment of its proposed projects that
are likely to have significant adverse effects … and
allow for public participation in such procedures.”
Article 14 (d) also states that in the event of “immi-
nent or grave danger or damage, originating under
its jurisdiction or control, … [Contracting Parties
shall] notify immediately the potentially affected
States of such danger or damage, as well as … pre-
vent or minimise such danger or damage”. These
obligations provide some guidance for research
and deployment of CE technologies, as they require
both reflection on the level of risk prior to deploy-
ment, adequate monitoring and the notification of
affected States when projects turn awry, at least in
the context of potential impacts on biological diver-
sity. However, these obligations have not been elab-
orated on a practical level and still leave a lot of
room for manoeuvre.
The CBD COP has attempted to step into the
breach, notably in its decisions (which are not bind-
ing but may nonetheless have some influence).10
Decision IX/1611 requests Parties to ensure that
ocean fertilisation activities do not take place until
there is an adequate scientific basis on which to jus-
tify such activities, including assessing associated
risks, and a global, transparent and effective control
and regulatory mechanism is in place; small scale
scientific research studies within coastal waters are
exempt from this prohibition.12 Although the deci-
sion references the decisions of the London Con-
vention and Protocol treaty bodies, it displays some
inconsistencies with the approach taken by those
entities,13 as will be discussed in the next section.
In Decision X/33,14 the COP re-iterated its previ-
ous stance but tempered it slightly as small- scale
research activities were no longer limited to coastal
waters. Rather it stated that such research should be
“conducted in a controlled setting in accordance
with Article 3 of the Convention”,15 which entails
the obligation to prevent transboundary environ-
mental damage.
In 2012 the COP addressed CE more broadly in
Decision XI/20,16 releasing three reports on the sub-
ject noting “the lack of science-based, global, trans-
parent and effective control and regulatory mecha-
nisms for climate-related geoengineering, the need
for a precautionary approach, [… also] noting that
Tackling Climate Change
128 CCLR 2| 2013
9 Convention on Biological Diversity, Rio de Janeiro, 5 June 1992,
in force 29 December 1993, 31 International Legal Materials
(1992), 818.
10 Randall S. Abate and Andrew B. Greenlee, “Sowing Seeds
Uncertain: Ocean Iron Fertilization, Climate Change, and
the International Environmental Law Framework”, 27 Pace
Environmental Law Review (2010), 555, at 576.
11 9th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention
on Biological Diversity, Decision IX/16, May 2008.
12 Ibid., Section C.
13 Abate and Greenlee, “Sowing Seeds Uncertain”, supra note 10,
at 582.
14 10th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention
on Biological Diversity, Decision X/33, October 2010.
15 Ibid., Paragraph 8(w).
16 11th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention
on Biological Diversity, Decision XI/20, October 2012.
Tackling Climate Change
there is no common understanding on where such
mechanisms would be best placed”17 and that the
existing international regulation was insufficient.
It is noteworthy that CBD texts do not acknowl-
edge the potential role of CE in avoiding dangerous
climate change. In not doing so the CBD seems to
be guided by a very one-sided interpretation of the
precautionary principle, as it neglects the adverse
effects insufficiently mitigated climate change
could have on biodiversity. It seems that the CBD’s
role has been interpreted as a preventive force cau-
tioning against action rather than providing for
ways forward, such as by creating incentive struc-
tures to reduce pressure on biodiversity. Given the
massive impacts on biodiversity to be expected
from insufficiently mitigated climate change it
seems likely that the ultimate vision of the CBD
cannot be achieved by restricting its scope to
merely limiting the application of technologies. A
precautionary approach only favouring inaction
runs the risk of preventing measures that could be
beneficial to biodiversity. Current species extinction
rates are approximately one thousand times greater
than the fossil record and expected to accelerate to
more than ten times that rate during the 21st cen-
tury. Climate change represents a key factor in that
trend, which becomes most obvious when consider-
ing the unlikely event of run-away climate change
due to reinforcing secondary feedbacks.
b. London Convention
The London Convention 18 and its subsequent Pro-
tocol 19 both aim to reduce the dumping of waste
into the ocean, waste here being defined in the
broadest possible manner as “material and sub-
stance of any kind, form or description”. To this end,
the Convention lists substances either as prohibited
or as requiring a special permit issued by a national
authority of the State Parties while any other mate-
rial that is dumped requires a general permit 20. The
Protocol takes a more precautionary approach –
prima facie prohibiting any waste other than the
few particular substances listed. This more strin-
gent regulation supersedes that of the Convention.
Given its breadth, the regime has significant impli-
cations for CE techniques that involve depositing
substances in oceans such as iron fertilisation
strategies intended to enhance algal growth and car-
bon sequestration under the seabed. Both of these
approaches have in fact been addressed by the Par-
ties to the Protocol. Carbon sequestration and stor-
age under the seabed has been listed in Annex I of
the Protocol – meaning it may be legally done, upon
issuance of a permit. The Scientific Group of the
London Protocol has drafted specific guidelines for
assessment of carbon sequestration and disposal
into sub-seabed geological formations to inform the
decision-making of national authorities in issuing
such permits.
The approach to ocean iron fertilisation has been
more guarded. After a statement of concern from
the Scientific Groups of the London Convention
and Protocol in 2007,21 the Parties to the Conven-
tion and Protocol also issued a resolution in 2008.22
Both of these documents emphasise the potential
risks and scientific uncertainty involved. The latter
document asserts that such activities fall under the
scope of the Convention and Protocol. While it
allows for “legitimate scientific research” to be con-
ducted, it demands that research not considered as
“legitimate research” be considered “dumping.” The
Intersessional Technical Working Group on Ocean
Fertilization produced guidelines to help authorities
in Contracting Parties decide whether or not proj-
ects constitute “legitimate scientific research.” 23 In
the resolution adopting this assessment framework
the State Parties also affirmed that “the London
Convention and the London Protocol should con-
tinue to work towards providing a global, transpar-
ent, and effective control and regulatory mecha-
CCLR 2| 2013 129
17 Ibid, Paragraph 8.
18 Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping
of Wastes and Other Matter, London, 29 December 1972, in
force 30 August 1975, 11 International Legal Materials (1972),
1358.
19 Protocol to the Convention on the Prevention of Marine
Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter, London,
17 November 1996, in force 24 March 2006, 36 International
Legal Materials (1997), 7.
20 London Convention, supra, note 18, Art IV.
21 Scientific Group for the London Convention and Scientific
Group for the London Protocol, Statement of Concern Regarding
Iron Fertilization of the Oceans to Sequester CO2, Doc. LC/SG
30/14, 2007.
22 30th Meeting of the Contracting Parties to the London Convention
and the 3rd Meeting of the Contracting Parties to the London
Protocol, Resolution LC-LP.1 on the Regulation of Ocean Fertil-
ization, 2008.
23 Assessment Framework for Scientific Research Involving Ocean
Fertilization, adopted on 14 October 2010 under Resolution
LC-LP.2(2010).
nism for ocean fertilisation activities and other
activities that fall within the scope of the London
Convention and the London Protocol and have the
potential to cause harm to the marine environ-
ment.”24 It should be noted that the restrictions
placed on ocean fertilisation projects are somewhat
less stringent than those suggested by the COP of
the CBD in Decision IX/16, as “legitimate scientific
research” is not necessarily as limited in scope as
“small scale scientific research studies within
coastal waters.” This poses the possibility of a con-
flict between the two regimes on the issue of ocean
fertilisation, although such conflict is possibly more
theoretical than real at present due to the revisions
made in Decision X/33 of the CBD COP and the low
number of field experiments. However, conflicting
approaches by different treaty bodies to the same
CE techniques could cause practical regulatory
problems. Insofar as these bodies are concerned
with different technologies, however, the potential
for conflict may be limited. A decentralised regula-
tory approach to CE may, however, have other draw-
backs such as redundancy and uncertainty regard-
ing future regulatory changes. This would particu-
larly become a problem, if one Convention body,
such as the UNFCCC, decided to encourage the
private sector to implement certain technologies in
order to ramp up GHG reduction efforts. For now
the uncertainty and accompanying reputational risk
may also deter a substantial amount of research in
the field. Overall mitigation efforts and the global
climate change strategy may also be somewhat
diluted if regulations and their negotiations are
diffused over several bodies.
c. Other Treaties
A number of other international treaties are of lim-
ited relevance to potential CE use: The International
Space Treaty may limit those applications of
RM taking place in outer space. The Treaty on Envi-
ronmental Modifications for Military Purposes
(ENMOD) would apply to explicitly hostile acts
involving RM. The convention on long-range trans-
boundary air pollution, the Vienna Convention and
the Montreal Protocol apply to specific substances
listed in appendices to the respective conventions.
From this short list it becomes clear that none of
these conventions have been designed to address
climate change and thus their application to CE
technologies was evidently also not envisaged. By
their nature these treaties could provide limits to
the use of specific technologies to the extent that
this could conflict with the treaties. Due to their
scope they may, however, never provide an inte-
grated and comprehensive framework to guide the
research, use and oversight over CE with regard to
climate change. Regulating the use of CE under any
of these will thus neither be sufficient nor appropri-
ate to reduce the risks from climate change or curb
possible misuse of CE.
3. UNFCCC
The United Nations Framework Convention on Cli-
mate Change (UNFCCC)25 is the only multilateral
forum specifically designed to address climate
change. It also distinguishes itself from many other
treaties as it offers mechanisms to modify the
incentive structures of public and private sector
entities, which have been applied in the real world,
such as under the Kyoto Protocol.
a. Negotiations and Role of the UNFCCC
The UNFCCC negotiation process – often portrayed
as extremely slow and ineffective – has drawn sub-
stantial criticism in the past and some may hope
that the process would collapse and thus make
space for more effective action. This wish is partly
based on the hope that a total lack of political action
would increase pressure to address climate change
in other venues, such as domestically. This view is
possibly based on a somewhat flawed understand-
ing of the role of supra-national entities: The Con-
vention is viewed as a decision making entity. How-
ever, it should rather be understood as a forum
where decision makers convene to seek a common
strategy. The decision making power of negotiators
is limited and in the absence of domestic pressure,
action on climate change, be it on the national or
supra-national level, will remain hesitant at best.
Tackling Climate Change
130 CCLR 2| 2013
24 32nd Meeting of the Contracting Parties to the London Conven-
tion and the 5th Meeting of the Contracting Parties to the London
Protocol, Resolution LC-LP.2 on the Assessment Framework for
Scientific Research Involving Ocean Fertilization, 2010.
25 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC), New York, 9 May 1992, in force 21 March 1994,
31 International Legal Materials (1992), 849.
Tackling Climate Change
What the Convention and its Kyoto Protocol26 do
provide is a coordinating function in order to agree
on rules that mobilise mitigation action in a num-
ber of countries and facilitate mitigation beyond
this group of countries through market mecha-
nisms or financial transfers (e.g. Clean Develop-
ment Mechanism (CDM), international emissions
trading schemes, or climate finance). Seen from this
perspective the body represents a crucial arena for
policy coordination: The Convention has matured
over a period of two decades, creating an enormous
amount of tacit knowledge, which sits almost idle
due to the lack of critical political will, but is ready
to spring to action given the emergence thereof.
Extreme weather events and other manifestations
of climate change are likely to increase substantially
over the next few decades, providing substantial
impetus for more substantive measures to address
climate change. However, there might not only be
calls for more substantive mitigation measures, but
also alternatives such as climate engineering.
b. Scope of the UNFCCC
Article 2 of the Convention defines the ultimate
goal as to “achieve, in accordance with the relevant
provisions of the Convention, stabilisation of green-
house gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a
level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic
interference with the climate system. Such a level
should be achieved within a time frame sufficient to
allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate
change, to ensure that food production is not threat-
ened and to enable economic development to pro-
ceed in a sustainable manner.”
This definition has mainly been interpreted as
aiming to stabilise GHG levels by lowering the
atmospheric GHG source-to-sink ratio eventually to
zero or even temporarily below zero by binding
more carbon than is being emitted. However, con-
sidering the topics that are currently negotiated
under the UNFCCC it becomes very clear that the
scope of the Convention has not been interpreted in
such a narrow sense, but in the broadest sense pos-
sible: any issues related to climate change from
mitigation (i.e. limiting GHG levels) to adaptation
(limiting impacts on core interests) and even repa-
ration (compensating for damages – see table 1).
CDR clearly falls within the scope of Article 2 and
inclusion in the mechanisms of the Convention
could probably be easily facilitated. However, the
current lack of political will has meant that new
CDR technologies are not economically attractive
under the market mechanisms of the Kyoto Proto-
col. The politicised nature of new technologies
and unresolved questions regarding liability might
further slow progress. A broad interpretation of
Art. 2 might even allow for RM, as RM allows a
higher level GHG concentration without leading
to a dangerous anthropogenic interference with the
climate system. For example, while without RM, a
concentration level of 550ppm might already be
dangerous, with RM even 800ppm might not be
dangerous.
c. Prevent Secondary Emissions
Even as RM is viewed by most commentators as
outside the scope of Article 2, it may in fact be per-
fectly in line even with the objective of ‘stabilising
levels of GHG to avoid dangerous climate change’.
One of the greatest risks – an unknown that is
largely ignored in the debate – is the occurrence of
reinforcing warming feedbacks in the natural sys-
tems. One example is the emission of methane from
arctic permafrost soils – an additional source of car-
bon, the volume of which has not yet been suffi-
ciently assessed (for a discussion of other tipping
points see Lenton et al.27). The chance that such
reinforcing feedbacks become the dominant force
within the 21st century is real (a threshold is often
set around 3°C of warming). Under such a scenario
it might become overwhelmingly clear that neither
reducing emissions nor deploying CDR at large
scales could possibly result in sufficiently rapid
cooling to re-stabilise the climatic system. The only
type of measures that might provide the rapid
response needed to prevent accelerating feedbacks
may be in the domain of radiation management.
Applying RM technology in such a scenario would
in fact contribute to “stabilising GHG at a level that
prevents dangerous climate change.” It is possible
that the pace of emissions from natural systems,
triggered by human action, might then outpace all
other efforts. We thus argue that a decision making
CCLR 2| 2013 131
26 Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change, Kyoto, 10 December 1997, in force
16 February 2005, 37 International Legal Materials (1998), 22.
27 Timothy M. Lenton et al., “Tipping Elements in the Earth’s
Climate System”, 105.6 Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences (2008), 1786.
process needs to be in place for such a situation by
creating the appropriate legal and institutional
framework. If no decision making process is put in
place the response may not come rapidly enough,
which could lead to uncoordinated unilateral action
or – what could be even worse – no response at
all. Since permafrost soils (and other elements of
reinforcing feedbacks) already show warning signs
and their dynamics are extremely hard to foresee, it
appears advisable that negotiations on these issues
start soon.
III. Is UNFCCC Involvement Plausible?
1. Stable, Experienced International Body
A functioning decision making entity that acknowl-
edges the voices of 195 countries as well as those of
a large number of non-governmental organisations
cannot emerge overnight. The main coordination
problem regarding CE will be to decide how to bal-
ance possible benefits in reducing climate related
risk against other diverse risks (e.g. food security of
certain regions, biodiversity or the integrity of the
oceans) and taking all issues relevant to climate
negotiations into account: equity, intra-generational
justice, burden sharing, etc. As stakeholders in the
UNFCCC have 20 years of experience, they have
grown accustomed to dealing with these issues and
possess an invaluable understanding of their com-
plexity.
2. Legitimacy Required
Arguably, overall acceptance and stability of any
decision regarding the use of a technology with
global implications will require the regime to carry
sufficient and stable power i.e. need to be backed by
a sufficiently powerful group of countries. This may
be strongly linked to its legitimacy: Several ele-
ments to this may be distinguished e.g. representa-
tiveness and scope as well as democratic elements
such as transparency and public participation. A
multilateral forum such as the G20 would arguably
have a much harder sell with regards to legitimacy
and would need to actively lure other countries on
board by offering compromises or compensation:
countries that agreed with the regime’s position will
back it and thus implicitly join the coalition. Other
countries might suffer losses due to the conse-
quences of the decision and might go as far as to
take actions to offset the initial ones. Even if it did
not come to that extreme scenario it would seem
likely that decisions on RM would require some
form of global inclusiveness in order to remain
uncontested; a UN forum would have a clear advan-
tage in that regard.
The second aspect of legitimacy concerns the
scope of the framework. It is possible to construe
the scope of the UNFCCC to include jurisdiction
over RM options. For example, Article 3 of the Con-
vention requires the Parties to protect “the climate
system,” and thus arguably encompasses RM meas-
ures that might imperil aspects of the climate sys-
tem, e.g. adverse changes in precipitation patterns.
Moreover, Article 4(f) requires the Parties to mini-
mize potentially negative impacts of mitigation or
adaptation measures, and RM measures could cer-
tainly be construed as such. Table 1 demonstrates
how broad the scope of the agreement has become
in practice. On the other hand it would appear
tricky to regulate RM entirely under the CBD just as
it would not be appropriate to regulate the preserva-
tion of biodiversity entirely under the UNFCCC:
Each convention, while taking into account overar-
ching aspects – such as sustainability – has a main
purpose, which it is designed and accountable for.
This example shows that some aspects of each
respective aim (limiting climate change and pre-
serving biodiversity) overlap in some areas. It is in
those areas that it becomes most important to elim-
inate conflicting decisions and distinguish, which
treaty has priority,based on the respective scopes of
the treaties in order to avoid serious contradictions
and political gridlock.
3. Indications for Future Development
a. Domains under the UNFCCC Evolving
As mentioned earlier the subject of negotiations has
evolved over the almost 20 years of existence of the
Convention. While the initial scope was limited to
emissions reductions the issue of preserving natu-
ral carbon sinks entered relatively early. The Parties
did not consider adaptation strategies until more
than 15 years after the UNFCCC came into force – it
was considered taboo, just as CE is today. Neverthe-
less, adaptation has become a centrepiece of the
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132 CCLR 2| 2013
Tackling Climate Change
negotiations and the evolution has not stopped
there, as the Parties decided at COP 18 to establish
institutions at the subsequent COP, which would
address “Loss and Damage”. This again represents a
major milestone for the issue of damages already
occurring to nations, such as related to rising sea
levels. Many observers and participants in the
UNFCCC process were surprised that the resolution
was adopted in the face of opposition by the United
States, among other Parties. With emissions still
way above most scenarios leading to the 2°C target
it seems almost inevitable that other novel concepts
will be introduced in the Convention – most cer-
tainly other CDR approaches and eventually RM.
Besides these fundamental changes, the mecha-
nisms for implementation have also evolved; while
the CDM was initially considered an experiment
with a low chance for success, it turned out to be
one of the most successful mechanisms so far and
has spawned debates on new market mechanisms.
Finally, also the sectors covered by the mechanisms
have been changing: While the lion’s share of CDM
projects in the early years of the Kyoto Protocol
were industrial and landfill gas reduction initia-
tives, in more recent years, the focus shifted to
renewable energy and industrial energy efficiency
efforts. Only with the introduction of the concept of
Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions, how-
ever, did residential housing efficiency or transport
become areas of interest. Depending on carbon
prices or specific government intervention we may
expect a stronger presence of carbon capture and
storage (CCS) in the energy sector – not the least
from Bio-Energy (BECCS), which would in its role
as a net sink of carbon further enhance the visibility
of CDR as a whole.
b. Consensus Interpretation
In the aftermath of the 2009 conference of the
Parties in Copenhagen, Parties quietly agreed to
abandon the strict understanding of unanimous
consent for passage of resolutions, which was how
the “consensus” requirement was previously con-
strued. In both COP 16 and 18 at least one country
was side-lined in the closing plenary – in Cancun it
was Bolivia, who was squarely against adoption of
the texts but was simply overruled, and in Durban
the situation repeated itself. This set a precedent for
the procedure at COP 18 in Doha, where Russia’s
demand to take the floor in the closing plenary was
“not seen” by the President of the COP, allowing the
Parties to adopt the comprehensive package of texts
dubbed the “Doha Gateway” despite opposition
from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. It seems that in
both cases the pragmatic objective of “moving for-
ward” has trumped the need for “consensus”. This
may come at the price of risking geopolitical retalia-
tion by those countries side-lined, but at the same
time might allow the UNFCCC to deliver results,
while maintaining support of the vast majority of
countries.A recent study28 has found the incentive
structure with regards to RM regulation to favour
forming small but sufficiently powerful coalitions;
introducing RM technologies into the debate may
thus even reinforce that already observed develop-
ment in UNFCCC negotiations.
c. Climate Change Moves Up on the Agenda
Climate change is an issue that will very likely move
up on the political agenda in the coming years:
Addressing climate change was among the top three
of President Obama’s re-election promises, Ban Ki
Moon announced holding a ministerial roundtable
in 2014 as a warm-up to the highly anticipated 2015
COP, which is expected to deliver a new climate
regime whose commitments would start by 2020.
This indicates that the influence of the UNFCCC is
likely to grow in the future. Also, public perception
e.g. in North America has recently seen some
changes not the least due to a number of extreme
weather events. Many countries or sub-national
entities are experimenting with carbon markets,
and as measuring and reporting approaches have
been put into place by many, the industries are
more ready than ever to take on the challenge of
dealing with carbon emissions. Renewables now
represent a matured array of alternatives and in
many places have started to strongly compete with
fossil or nuclear fuel based energy technologies.
This indicates that willingness to commit to emis-
sions reductions on the national level could signifi-
cantly increase, due to an improved cost-benefit
ratio for their domestic economies, but it may be
just too late to only engage in emissions reductions
without CDR, and possibly, RM measures.
CCLR 2| 2013 133
28 Katharine L Ricke, Juan B Moreno-Cruz and Ken Caldeira,
“Strategic Incentives for Climate Geoengineering Coalitions to
Exclude Broad Participation”, 8 Environmental Research Letters
(2013).
IV. New Dynamics
As others29 have discussed, the costs of implement-
ing RM technologies are so low that their incentive
structure is significantly different from conven-
tional emission reduction and CDR; it seems possi-
ble that a small group of sufficiently powerful
nations could decide to apply RM on their own. The
main question from a geopolitical point of view
would then not be how to distribute the costs of
interventions, but how to form a small but suffi-
ciently powerful group for global RM; sufficiently
small in order to be able to internally agree on the
actual level of temperatures (“choosing the thermo-
stat temperature”) but powerful enough to prevent
other nations with different preferences from inter-
fering. Of course, the temperature level would not
necessarily be in line with maximization of global
welfare. Like in arms control regimes, international
participation, verification and transparency rules
would be crucial to allow convergence towards the
global optimum. Other principles from climate
negotiations may also play a role in finding an
acceptably balanced decision. Otherwise, disruptive
action by “climate terrorists” tacitly supported by
governments that dislike the temperature level set
by the RM coalition may become a plausible risk.
As discussed earlier, this may be a main reason why
a formal UN framework might finally decide on
RM rather than an informal alliance such as the
G20. Due to the strong implications of RM it seems
plausible that officially considering RM options will
spark attention of a much wider public audience
and further increase awareness of climate change,
possibly increasing the saliency of climate change
in the political agenda. This may somewhat depend
on the narrative chosen by mass media, when cov-
ering RM: The use of aggressive narratives such as
“going to war” or “chemotherapy for the planet” or a
focus on the various risks may foster both contro-
versy and public awareness. Again, such a global
increase of awareness would support a UN-based
negotiation forum on CE.
If Parties to the Convention chose to negotiate
over RM initially most likely a core group of very
powerful countries, with a relatively similar prefer-
ence regarding the “thermostat” would form a coali-
tion. The coalition might then try to attract other
countries that have slightly different preferences by
offering specific compromises – be it in the area of
climate change through e.g. adaptation support or
payments for rectification or even other, unrelated
political areas. It is unlikely that the national inter-
ests to support or prevent the use of specific RM
technologies falls in line with the current country
positions and alliances, and therefore changes to
country positions and country groups are very
likely consequences of negotiating RM interven-
tions.
The above-mentioned incentive to form small but
sufficiently powerful coalitions to agree on the use
of RM could result in two different effects: Either
such a coalition forms under the rubric of the
UNFCCC, or if differences in positions appear too
large, such a coalition might seek a decision outside
of the UNFCCC process. In order to enhance legiti-
macy the coalition might attempt a hybrid approach
that would somehow carry the weight of a UN
process. If the decision is construed as being forced
upon some countries by others, it is unlikely to
constitute a very stable regime. The incentive to
govern RM activities outside the UN may be greatly
reduced once states realise the possible need to
establish an entirely new political framework of
similar complexity to the UNFCCC.
V. Conclusion
The emergence of climate engineering calls for a
generic framework to prevent the equivalent of an
arms race in radiation management. Discussing the
London Convention and Protocol as well as the Con-
vention on Biodiversity we have shown that regulat-
ing technologies under different treaties may create
an inconsistent and uncertain framework, which
can even deter research and private sector involve-
ment and does not allow the establishment of an
efficient and effective global strategy to address
climate change. We have shown that a UN process
has practical advantages over a more informal
alliance due to reasons of legitimacy. We have
shown that the UNFCCC is best placed to provide
for a generic framework on climate change includ-
ing all CDR and RM technologies. The Convention
has the additional advantage of bringing almost
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134 CCLR 2| 2013
29 Martin Weitzman, “A Voting Architecture for the Governance of
Free-Driver Externalities, with Application to Geoengineering”,
w18622 National Bureau of Economic Research (2012).
Tackling Climate Change
20 years of experience in the complex dynamics of
negotiating on climate change. Eventually, the
choice might be between a transparent, UNFCCC-
based process of negotiating CE compared to a
messy, bilaterally dominated and eventually violent
“tug-of-war” regarding the appropriate level of the
Earth’s temperature. The latter could destabilise
international politics. We hope that the experience
from international arms races leads to a peaceful
and coordinated use of CE technologies, under
the aegis of the UN. This should include a full
assessment of the risks of various CE deployment
scenarios balanced against the risks of alternative
scenarios without those CE technologies.
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