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Material Resemblances Between Cloud Seeding and Regional Solar Radiation Management

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Learning from Weather Modification Law for the Governance of Regional Solar Radiation Management

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Abstract

This chapter examines the extent to which cloud seeding and regional SRM share material resemblances by evaluating four core attributes: intervention, intent, purpose, and scale. It concludes that cloud seeding and regional SRM techniques bear sufficient similarities to further a legal analogy.

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Notes

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  3. 3.

    The standard account of analogy, which focuses on similarities and dissimilarities, implies there can be no perfect analogy: ‘analogies are “closer” or “more perfect” the more features are held in common by the analogs; thus, by implication, the perfect analogy is one in which no difference can be discerned between the analogs (i.e., the case in which they are identical)’. Lawrence C. Becker. 1973. Analogy in legal reasoning. Ethics 83(3): 248.

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    Becker. Analogy in legal reasoning: 251.

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  7. 7.

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    Annex I: Glossary. In Valérie Masson-Delmotte et al. 2018. Global warming of 1.5 °C: An IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

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  11. 11.

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    ENMOD Convention, art II (emphasis added).

  23. 23.

    UNEP Governing Council. 1980. Provisions for co-operation between states in weather modification. (No Decision 8/7/A, 1980) (emphasis added).

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    Weather Modification Information Act, RSC 1985 c W-5, s 1 (emphasis added).

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    Meteorology Law of the People’s Republic of China, National People’s Congress Standing Committee, Order No 14, 31 October 1999, art 41(5) (emphasis added).

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    Catherine Redgwell. 2011. Geoengineering the climate: Technological solutions to mitigation—failure or continuing carbon addiction? Carbon & Climate Law Review 5(2): 179.

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    Clare Heyward. 2013. Situating and abandoning geoengineering: A typology of five responses to dangerous climate change. Political Science & Politics 46(1): 25; Boucher et al. Rethinking climate engineering categorization: 23; Du. An international legal framework for geoengineering: 10.

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    Tracy Hester. 2013. A matter of scale: Regional climate engineering and the shortfalls of multinational governance. Carbon & Climate Law Review 7(3): 168; John Latham et al. 2014. Marine cloud brightening: Regional applications. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 372(2031): 4; Johannes Quaas et al. 2016. Regional climate engineering by radiation management: Prerequisites and prospects. Earth’s Future 4(12): 618–625.

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  35. 35.

    Stanley A. Changnon and W. Henry Lambright. 1987. The rise and fall of federal weather modification policy. Journal of Weather Modification 19(1): 4; James Rodger Fleming. 2006. The pathological history of weather and climate modification: Three cycles of promise and hype. Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 37(1): 9–10.

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    Changnon and Lambright. The rise and fall of federal weather modification policy: 4.

  37. 37.

    World Meteorological Organization. 2015. Statement on weather modification. Report from Expert Team on Weather Modification Research for 2015 (Phitsanulok, Thailand, 17 March 2015): 3.

  38. 38.

    Shiuh-Shen Chien et al. 2017. Ideological and volume politics behind cloud water resource governance—weather modification in China. Geoforum 85: 227; Kingsley Edney and Jonathan Symons. 2014. China and the blunt temptations of geo-engineering: The role of solar radiation management in China’s strategic response to climate change. Pacific Review 27(3): 316–317.

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    Karen N. Scott. 2010. Marine geo-engineering: A new challenge for the Law of the Sea. 18th Annual Australia New Zealand Society of International Law (ANZSIL) Conference (24–26 June 2010): 2.

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    Lawrence A. Weirs. 1974. Weather modification: A modest proposal. Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law 4: 170–171.

  43. 43.

    Ottmar Edenhofer et al. 2011. IPCC Expert Meeting on Geoengineering. Lima, Peru, 20–22 June 2011. Meeting report. Potsdam: IPCC: 2.

  44. 44.

    House of Commons Science and Technology Committee. 2010. The regulation of geoengineering. Fifth report of Session 2009–10. London: House of Commons: 16.

  45. 45.

    Edenhofer et al. IPCC Expert Meeting on Geoengineering: 6.

  46. 46.

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  47. 47.

    Boucher et al. Rethinking climate engineering categorization: 27.

  48. 48.

    Du. An international legal framework for geoengineering: 27.

  49. 49.

    Flossmann et al. Peer review report on global precipitation enhancement activities: 61–67.

  50. 50.

    See generally Steven M. Hunter. 2007. Optimizing cloud seeding for water and energy in California. A pier-final project report for California Energy Commission. Sacramento: California Energy Commission; Don A. Griffith and M. E. Solak. 2006. The potential use of winter cloud seeding programs to augment the flow of the Colorado River. Colorado White Paper: A report prepared for the Upper Colorado River Commission. Sandy, UT: North American Weather Consultants, Inc.

  51. 51.

    Boucher et al. Rethinking climate engineering categorization: 27.

  52. 52.

    Latham et al. Marine cloud brightening: 2.

  53. 53.

    Hester. A matter of scale: 168.

  54. 54.

    See generally Tom P. DeFelice et al. 2014. Extra area effects of cloud seeding: An updated assessment. Atmospheric Research 135–136: 193–203.

  55. 55.

    List. Weather modification—a scenario for the future: 53.

  56. 56.

    Lada L. Roslycky. 2003. Weather modification operations with transboundary effects: The technology, the activities and the rules. Hague Yearbook of International Law 16: 3–40.

  57. 57.

    Note, however, that ‘the interpretation set forth above is intended exclusively for this Convention and is not intended to prejudice the interpretation of the same or similar terms if used in connexion with any other international agreement’. ENMOD Convention Understanding relating to Article I. See, e.g. the terms are interpreted differently under the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I) (entered into force 8 June 1977) art 35(3), which prohibits ‘methods or means of warfare which are intended, or may be expected, to cause widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment’. See, e.g. ‘[t]he time or duration required (i.e., long term) was considered by some to be measured in decades.’ OR XV 268, CDDH/215/Rev.1 [27].

  58. 58.

    ENMOD Convention Understanding relating to Article I.

  59. 59.

    First Review Conference of the Parties to the ENMOD Convention (1984). Final Declaration. ENMOD/CONF.I/13/II, 3. Second Review Conference of the Parties to the ENMOD Convention (1992). Final Declaration. ENMOD/CONF.II/12. Part II, 11.

  60. 60.

    Resolution LP.4(8): On the Amendment to the London Protocol to Regulate the Placement of Matter for Ocean Fertilization and other Marine Geoengineering Activities, LC 35/15, adopted 18 October 2013 (not entered into force), art 1(5bis).

  61. 61.

    Kathryn Yusoff. 2013. The geoengine: Geoengineering and the geopolitics of planetary modification. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 45(12): 2804: Jesse L. Reynolds. 2019. The governance of solar geoengineering: Managing climate change in the Anthropocene. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 132.

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    Edward A. Parson and David W. Keith. 2013. End the deadlock on governance of geoengineering research. Science 339(6125): 1279.

  63. 63.

    Parson and Keith. End the deadlock: 1279.

  64. 64.

    Boucher et al. Rethinking climate engineering categorization: 30.

  65. 65.

    Boucher et al. Rethinking climate engineering categorization: 33.

  66. 66.

    Du. An international legal framework for geoengineering: 190.

  67. 67.

    Du. An international legal framework for geoengineering: 190.

  68. 68.

    Du. An international legal framework for geoengineering: 190.

  69. 69.

    The Royal Society and John Shepherd. 2009. Geoengineering the climate: Science, governance and uncertainty. London: The Royal Society: 38–39.

  70. 70.

    Hauser. Using twentieth-century U.S. weather modification policy: 183.

  71. 71.

    Boucher et al. Rethinking climate engineering categorization: 27.

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    Manon Simon

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Simon, M. (2024). Material Resemblances Between Cloud Seeding and Regional Solar Radiation Management. In: Learning from Weather Modification Law for the Governance of Regional Solar Radiation Management. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-1904-4_3

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