IPCC Expert Meeting on Geoengineering

Annex 4: Poster Abstracts
An Integrated Assessment of Geoengineering Proposals
Piers Forster 1 *, Naomi Vaughan 2 , Olivier Boucher 3 , Richard Darton 4 , Maia Galarraga 5 , Andrew Jarvis 5 , Nicolas
Pidgeon 6 , Andrew Ridgwell 7
1
University of Leeds, UK
2
University of East Anglia, UK
3
Met Office, UK
4
University of Oxford, UK
5
University of Lancaster, UK
6
University of Cardiff, UK
7
University of Bristol, UK
There is currently insufficient information to inform the emerging debate about geoengineering, this work will begin to
address the gaps in our knowledge about effectiveness and side effects of geoengineering schemes. Integral to the
assessment process is active and ongoing engagement with stakeholders, including science policy experts and the general
public, to produce objective and informed policy-relevant science.
The Integrated Assessment of Geoengineering Proposals (IAGP) is a new four year research project that started on 1st
October 2010 and is funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the Natural
Environment Research Council (NERC). IAGP brings together a broad range of expertise, from climate modelling to
philosophy and engineering to public perceptions to conduct an objective, policy-relevant assessment of geoengineering
proposals. IAGP has the following core research objectives: to evaluate the effectiveness and side-effects of a broad range
of geoengineering proposals, to evaluate the controllability of global climate using these proposals and to elicit and include
stakeholder and public values into the evaluation. Key sub-objectives will be to examine in detail the public acceptability of
different geoengineering solutions and to evaluate the possibility of preventing tipping points via geoengineering control.
Previous assessments of proposals (e.g. Lenton and Vaughan, 2009) have been somewhat preliminary and have been
largely based on a physical science evaluation of solar radiation management techniques. For this assessment we are being
more rigorous. This involves a) comparing different proposals (including solar reduction and carbon management
technologies) within the same modelling framework, and b) engaging with the public and stakeholder community prior to
running the climate models to help create an objective set of policy-relevant metrics to evaluate both the effectiveness and
side effects of a given proposal (Corner and Pidgeon, 2010).
At this stage in the project we have run preliminary workshops with both the public and stakeholders.
The second stage will be to use these workshop findings to create a set of metric criteria for climate model evaluation. A
repeat stakeholder workshop in October 2011 will decide on these metrics and climate model integrations will then start to
evaluate the physical science based metrics. A further deliberative workshop towards the end of the project will feedback
and interpret climate model results to stakeholders and the public. Readers are encouraged to visit the project website
(www.iagp.ac.uk) to find out more about what we to keep up to date with our publications.
References
Corner A., and N. Pidgeon, 2010: Geoengineering the climate: the social and ethical implications. Environment Magazine
52, 26–37.
Lenton T.M., and N.E. Vaughan, 2009: The radiative forcing potential of different climate geoengineering options.
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 9, 5539–5561.
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