Geoengineering projects dangerous to environment, say researchers

New Delhi, Sep 9 (PTI) Geoengineering, or the use of technological interventions to delay or mask effects of global warming, is flawed, not viable and "environmentally dangerous", researchers say.

Curbing greenhouse gas emissions is largely considered the primary solution to limiting global warming to well within 2 degrees Celsius, outlined in the Paris Agreement.

However, geoengineering has been proposed by certain research groups to hasten efforts in mitigating warming, especially in polar regions -- effects of which could be felt around the world.

The proposed interventions include 'sea curtains', or flexible floating structures that stop warm water from reaching ice shelves, and 'sea ice management', in which glass beads are scattered on sea ice to boost its reflecting capacity.

The international team of researchers from the US, UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand looked at five geoengineering interventions and found that "the proposed concepts would be environmentally dangerous".

"It is clear to us that the assessed approaches are not feasible, and that further research into these techniques would not be an effective use of limited time and resources," the authors wrote in the analysis published in the journal Frontiers in Science.

The team found no field experiments involving sea curtains or sea ice reflection to suggest that the ideas are effective or feasible.

Lead author Martin Siegert from the UK's University of Exeter said, "These ideas are often well-intentioned, but they're flawed. As a community, climate scientists and engineers are doing all we can to reduce the harms of the climate crisis. But deploying any of these five polar projects is likely to work against the polar regions and planet." Further, each of the five interventions analysed were found to risk environmental damage, with sea ice management carrying particular ecological risks, such as glass beads darkening the ice.

Risks of stratospheric aerosol injections -- another intervention that involves releasing aerosols in the atmosphere to reflect sunlight and reduce sun's warming effect -- include ozone depletion and changes to climate patterns across the globe, the researchers said.

The team also estimated each geoengineering intervention to cost at least USD 10 billion to install and maintain; sea curtains are among the most expensive, projected at USD 80 billion over 10 years for an 80-kilometre-long structure.

Combining the world's limited resources in treating the cause (greenhouse gas emissions) in place of the symptoms could instead have a "fair shot at reaching net zero and restoring our climate's health," co-author and glaciologist Heidi Sevestre from Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme Secretariat, said. PTI KRS KRS RUK RUK