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Cited by 67Climate Change and GeoengineeringSustainability and Climate Change GovernanceSpace exploration and regulation

Clash of Geofutures and the Remaking of Planetary Order: Faultlines underlying Conflicts over Geoengineering Governance

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McLaren, Duncan, Corry, Olaf·2021·Global Policy
DOI 10.1111/1758-5899.12863
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Abstract

Climate engineering (geoengineering) is rising up the global policy agenda, partly because international divisions pose deep challenges to collective climate mitigation. However, geoengineering is similarly subject to clashing interests, knowledge‐traditions and geopolitics. Modelling and technical assessments of geoengineering are facilitated by assumptions of a single global planner (or some as yet unspecified rational governance), but the practicality of international governance remains mostly speculative. Using evidence gathered from state delegates, climate activists and modellers, we reveal three underlying and clashing ‘geofutures’: an idealised understanding of governable geoengineering that abstracts from technical and political realities; a situated understanding of geoengineering emphasising power hierarchies in world order; and a pragmatist precautionary understanding emerging in spaces of negotiation such as UN Environment Assembly (UNEA). Set in the wider historical context of climate politics, the failure to agree even to a study of geoengineering at UNEA indicates underlying obstacles to global rules and institutions for geoengineering posed by divergent interests and underlying epistemic and political differences. Technology assessments should recognise that geoengineering will not be exempt from international fractures; that deployment of geoengineering through imposition is a serious risk; and that contestations over geofutures pertain, not only to climate policy, but also the future of planetary order.

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Authors
McLaren, D., & Corry, O.
Affiliations
  • Lancaster University (GB)
  • University of Leeds (GB)
Corresponding author
Corry, Olaf
ORCID
Venue
Global Policy
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2021-01-23
Volume
12
Issue
S1
Pages
20-33
ISSN
  • 1758-5880 (ISSN-L)
  • 1758-5899
DOI
10.1111/1758-5899.12863
OpenAlex
W3126091936
Cited by
67
References
5
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 19 · 2024: 26 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 6
FWCI
4.61
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Global Policy (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • Research at the University of Copenhagen (University of Copenhagen) (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • White Rose Research Online (University of Leeds, The University of Sheffield, University of York) (acceptedVersion)
  • Lancaster EPrints (Lancaster University) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • Det Frie Forskningsråd (9038‐00093B)
  • Christopher Reynolds Foundation
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Climate Change and Geoengineering
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Sustainability and Climate Change Governance
  • Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Space exploration and regulation
Keywords
geoengineering governance, geoengineering, planetary order, international climate governance, precautionary principle, technology assessment, UN Environment Assembly, climate activism, power hierarchies, international climate policy, epistemic difference

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