ADDING LIME to acidifying oceans, sucking carbon dioxide (C02) and methane out of the air, genetically modifying crops so they are lighter in colour, and painting roofs and even roads white to reflect the sun’s heat . . . welcome of the world of geo-engineering.
Such “solutions” to the problem of global warming are to be discussed next week by experts at a meeting in Lima, Peru, convened by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is being widely criticised for giving credibility to this controversial area.
In an open letter to the panel chairman Dr Rajendra Pachauri, numerous non-governmental organisations warn that “asking a group of geo-engineering scientists if more research should be done on the topic is like asking a group of hungry bears if they would like honey.”
The letter, signed by Friends of the Earth International, the African Biodiversity Network, the Global Forest Coalition and many others, points out many of those on the Lima meeting’s steering group have “patents pending on geo-engineering technologies”.
“The prospects of artificially changing the chemistry of our oceans to absorb more CO2, modifying the Earth’s radiative balance, devising new carbon sinks in fragile ecosystems, redirecting hurricanes and other extreme weather events are alarming,” it says.
“The potential for accidents, dangerous experiments, inadequate risk assessment, unexpected impacts, unilateralism, private profiteering, disruption of agriculture, inter-state conflict, illegitimate political goals and negative consequences for the global south is high.”
At the opening of the Bonn talks last week, UN climate chief Christiana Figueres said: “We are putting ourselves in a scenario where we will have to develop more powerful technologies to capture emissions out of the atmosphere . . . We are getting into very risky territory.”
This reflected the lack of progress of the talks in giving hope that the worst impacts of climate change could be averted by cutting greenhouse gas emissions and providing significant funding to enable developing countries to cope with the adverse consequences.
As the IPCC itself has conceded, “the understanding of the physical science basis of geo-engineering is still limited” and it would, therefore, “for the first time”, assess this in several chapters of a working group contribution to its fifth assessment of climate change, due in 2014.
But the open letter from NGOs, now being circulated on the internet, says the likelihood that “intentional large-scale manipulation of the Earth’s systems to modify the climate would provide a safe, lasting, democratic and peaceful solution to the climate crisis is non-existent”.
“The IPCC aims to be ‘policy relevant’ and ‘policy neutral’, and must take great care not to squander its credibility on geo-engineering, a topic that is gathering steam precisely when there is no real progress [in the UN climate tallks] on mitigation and adaptation.”
The letter also complains that “independent organisations which have devoted years of critical research to geo-engineering are not allowed to participate, even as observers” in the Lima meeting, even though the issue is “primarily . . . a political one”.
The full text of the letter is available at www.etcgroup.org/en/ node/5267
