The Risks of Geoengineering Accelerating Biodiversity Loss and Compounding Planetary Crises

The document examines the ecological and human rights risks of various geoengineering approaches, asserting that these speculative technologies could lead to ecosystem collapse and perpetuate neocolonialism.

• Geoengineering technologies are described as failing to address the root causes of the climate crisis and instead risking the acceleration of species extinction and ecosystem collapse.
• The number of proposed outdoor geoengineering field experiments has increased significantly, with at least 598 proposed since 1971; over 90 percent of these occurred between 2004 and 2023, and more than half between 2019 and 2023.
• Solar radiation modification (SRM) technologies, such as stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), could cause uneven regional cooling and a global decrease in mean precipitation of approximately 2 percent, which would severely impact megadiverse nations including Indonesia, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Gabon, and Malaysia.
• Mineral-based ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) and enhanced weathering (EW) would require large-scale mining comparable to the current global coal mining industry, increasing habitat degradation and species richness loss.
• Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) intended to meet Paris Agreement limits would require up to 3 billion hectares of productive land, roughly twice the world's current total cultivated lands, risking food insecurity and biodiversity loss.
• Direct air capture (DAC) technologies have high water demands; capturing just 1 percent of 2022 anthropogenic CO2 emissions would require approximately 1,730 metric tons of water, exceeding annual domestic freshwater withdrawals in 144 out of 181 nations.
• Geoengineering deployment risks violating the human rights of millions or billions of people, disproportionately affecting Indigenous Peoples, peasants, and fisherfolks, and may perpetuate neocolonialism by concentrating power among a small Global North elite.
• The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has maintained a de facto global moratorium on geoengineering since 2010, which was reaffirmed at COP16 in 2024.

APA

Carlson, A. M., & Church, M. (2024). The Risks of Geoengineering Accelerating Biodiversity Loss and Compounding Planetary Crises. Center for International Environmental Law. https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/The-Risks-of-Geoengineering_CIEL_briefing_Nov.pdf

Chicago

Carlson, Alana M., and Mary Church. The Risks of Geoengineering Accelerating Biodiversity Loss and Compounding Planetary Crises. Center for International Environmental Law, 2024. https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/The-Risks-of-Geoengineering_CIEL_briefing_Nov.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Carlson |first1=Alana M. |last2=Church |first2=Mary |title=The Risks of Geoengineering Accelerating Biodiversity Loss and Compounding Planetary Crises |publisher=Center for International Environmental Law |date=2024 |url=https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/The-Risks-of-Geoengineering_CIEL_briefing_Nov.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{carlson2024risks, author = {Carlson, Alana M. and Church, Mary}, title = {{The Risks of Geoengineering Accelerating Biodiversity Loss and Compounding Planetary Crises}}, institution = {Center for International Environmental Law}, year = {2024}, url = {https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/The-Risks-of-Geoengineering_CIEL_briefing_Nov.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }