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Why geoengineering is not a ‘global public good’, and why it is ethically misleading to frame it as one

Climatic Change volume 121, pages 513–525 (2013)Cite this article

A Commentary to this article was published on 22 February 2014

Abstract

In early policy work, climate engineering is often described as a global public good. This paper argues that the paradigm example of geoengineering—stratospheric sulfate injection (hereafter ‘SSI’)—does not fit the canonical technical definition of a global public good, and that more relaxed versions are unhelpful. More importantly, it claims that, regardless of the technicalities, the public good framing is seriously misleading, in part because it arbitrarily marginalizes ethical concerns. Both points suggest that more clarity is needed about the aims of geoengineering policy—and especially governance—and that this requires special attention to ethics.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The assumption that SSI is a paradigm case is so universal that it is often the only case considered in the public good analysis. Moreover, while the public good analysis might succeed for other technologies (e.g., carbon dioxide removal), this requires argument given the massive scale of intervention needed (Gardiner 2011, 343–345).

  2. 2.

    The use of the lighthouse as a paradigm does not imply that all lighthouses are pure public goods. The motivating idea is that there is a readily imaginable (though perhaps rare) circumstance where a lighthouse would be a pure public good for some community.

  3. 3.

    Some of my objections also count against treating emissions reductions as a global public good (cf. Stern 2007).

  4. 4.

    Even those who reject the definitional claim often presuppose universal benefit in particular cases, since they typically assume that underprovision is a problem to be solved.

  5. 5.

    The inference to (d) is misleading. Governance is an issue even with universal benefit (see below).

  6. 6.

    Interestingly, the first Oxford Principle may be best read in this way.

  7. 7.

    Many geoengineering advocates argue that better policies have proven politically unavailable. This is an independent argument, which should be assessed on its merits, not obscured by the pairwise approach.

  8. 8.

    For more expensive technologies, such as air capture, underprovision may be a serious issue.

  9. 9.

    The third UNDP volume strays in this direction by not only dropping the universal benefit claim, but also defining a public good as either nonrival or not excluded (Kaul and Conceicao 2006).

  10. 10.

    The original statement of the first Oxford Principle was ambiguous (as noted by the UK government). Subsequently, the authors clarified that they intend at least the global and intergenerational concerns (Rayner et al. 2013).

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Acknowledgements

The author is grateful for research support from the Environment Institute of the University of Washington College of the Environment, the Smith School for Energy and the Environment at Oxford University, the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS), and the Center for Biological Futures (Prime Contract No. HHM 402-11-D-0017) at the University of Washington. He also thanks Simon Caney, Ben Gardiner, Lauren Hartzell Nichols, Clare Heyward, Dale Jamieson, Julian Savulescu, Henry Shue and two anonymous reviewers for their comments. The views expressed remain solely the responsibility of the author.

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  1. University of Washington, Seattle, USA

    Stephen M. Gardiner

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  1. Stephen M. Gardiner
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Correspondence to Stephen M. Gardiner.

Additional information

This article is part of a special issue on “Geoengineering Research and its Limitations” edited by Robert Wood, Stephen Gardiner, and Lauren Hartzell-Nichols.

Ben Rabinowitz Endowed Professor of the Human Dimensions of the Environment.

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Gardiner, S.M. Why geoengineering is not a ‘global public good’, and why it is ethically misleading to frame it as one. Climatic Change 121, 513–525 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-013-0764-x

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Keywords

  • Public Good
  • Political Legitimacy
  • Global Public Good
  • Pure Public Good
  • Climate Engineering