SY013
Global and Local Public Perceptions of Solar Geoengineering

Session ID#: 160998

Session Description:
This session invites research, practices, and frameworks exploring local and global engagement in solar geoengineering research and potential experiments. We particularly invite papers from researchers in the Global South or from communities at the leading edge of climate change.

SCoPEx is a proposed small-scale in-situ geoengineering experiment, and the SCoPEx Advisory Committee is charged with making recommendations about the experiment and whether to conduct research in a particular location. We are trying to design a replicable public engagement process for guiding our recommendation, and this session will provide an update on that public engagement and welcome input into the design.

We want to invite research, experience, and insights that can help us address questions including:

  • How should a decision about a specific in-situ experiment balance local and global perspectives? 
  • What methods/mechanisms work best to gather public input from a diverse group of citizens? 
  • What can be done to invite more public input from citizens in the Global South?  
  • What are the existing gaps in knowledge about public opinion in the area of solar geoengineering?  
  • How do perceptions differ from one region to another, and specifically from more climate vulnerable regions to less climate vulnerable ones? 
  • How do we ensure processes for public deliberation don’t inherit or perpetuate systemic racism and colonialism?  
  • What do we know about how consideration of geoengineering research influences mitigation behaviors or public opinion about eventual deployment? 
Index Terms:

1630 Impacts of global change [GLOBAL CHANGE]
1904 Community standards [INFORMATICS]
6309 Decision making under uncertainty [POLICY SCIENCES & PUBLIC ISSUES]
6329 Project evaluation [POLICY SCIENCES & PUBLIC ISSUES]

Primary Convener:  Sally Klimp, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States; Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering, Somerville, MA, United States
Convener:  Louise Wells Bedsworth, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, United States
See more of: Science and Society
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