Screw that. “Give emitters an excuse”? They don’t need an excuse. Buying time with geoengineering will at least give solar/wind time to get further down the learning curve and replace EOL fossil plants.
And as for “far-reaching unintended consequences”, that is unavoidable - we don’t know what the full extent of the consequences of climate destabilisation will be, either! What we do know is that it will kill millions of people. The only way to avoid playing with fire is for step-change emissions reduction now, but we know that isn’t going to happen.
Besides, if we’re worried about the side effects, banning studies that emit trace amounts of it will just amplify that problem.
Here are some of the key reasons to oppose geoengineering, which are discussed in more depth below:
It doesn’t work: None of the technologies have a track record, all of them come with major risks and unknowns, and in some cases the effects would be obviously catastrophic.
Detracts from real solutions: By promising a quick fix, geoengineering threatens to delay the implementation of a transition away from fossil fuels, and could redirect funding and investments away from real climate solutions. Some geoengineering proposals require vast amounts of energy, which means less climate-friendly energy for everyone else.
Human rights and biodiversity: Many geoengineering proposals require the intensive exploitation of vast amounts of land (in the case of BECCS, twice the size of India!) and increasingly the oceans too . Those projects would inevitably displace millions of people and potentially wipe out entire ecosystems.
Weaponization: Computer models show that geoengineering interventions can have regional winners and losers; should governments and corporations decide that geoengineering can successfully change climate patterns, it will inevitably be weaponized.
The bottom line: geoengineering techniques do nothing to address the root causes of climate change, and evidence points to a high likelihood that rather than improving the climate, they would make things worse—potentially in catastrophic fashion.
Screw that. “Give emitters an excuse”? They don’t need an excuse. Buying time with geoengineering will at least give solar/wind time to get further down the learning curve and replace EOL fossil plants.
And as for “far-reaching unintended consequences”, that is unavoidable - we don’t know what the full extent of the consequences of climate destabilisation will be, either! What we do know is that it will kill millions of people. The only way to avoid playing with fire is for step-change emissions reduction now, but we know that isn’t going to happen.
Besides, if we’re worried about the side effects, banning studies that emit trace amounts of it will just amplify that problem.
You might be interested in taking a look at the following site. It is called Geoengineering Monitor.
Key reasons to oppose geoengineering
Or their section that is about solar, specifically