Global climate governance in the light of geoengineering: A shot in the dark?

Abstract

Solar radiation management (SRM), as one form of geoengineering, has been proposed as a last exit strategy to address global warming. Even though SRM is expected to be cheap, it may be risky and associated with high collateral damages. We analyze how SRM affects equilibrium mitigation strategies, the governance architecture of a climate agreement and whether and how signatories to a climate agreement can avoid the deployment of geoengineering, either by all or a subgroup of countries. We show under which conditions the threat to deploy geoengineering can stabilize a large climate agreement.