Campaigners working to limit the use of controversial sun-dimming technology have praised the Europe\u2019s foreign ministers for warning of the risks such technology poses, but opinions remain split over whether it merits more research, with the European Union keeping its position open for now. <\/p>\n
At a joint council meeting in Luxembourg, ministers representing the EU\u2019s 27 member states signed off on a statement agreeing for the first time that they were \u201cconcerned that large-scale climate interventions, in particular solar radiation modification (SRM), pose significant risks for the climate, the environment, security and geopolitics\u201d.<\/p>\n
Their statement<\/a>, issued in late April, called for a moratorium on deployment of SRM technologies, as well as \u201cthe full application of the precautionary principle to geoengineering\u201d and for the EU to engage in international talks on international governance arrangements, including those related to research.<\/p>\n SRM refers to any deliberate attempt to reduce the amount of heat which reaches the Earth from the sun. This could be carried out by artificially brightening clouds or injecting aerosols into the atmosphere, which could reduce or reverse global warming but risk severe and unpredictable side-effects.<\/p>\n The risks of carrying out SRM are widely acknowledged but climate campaigners and scientists remain divided on to what extent and how its effects should be researched, with some arguing that such work normalises it and encourages its deployment.<\/p>\n Experts on both sides of the debate welcomed the EU\u2019s statement but made contrasting calls on what should happen next. A more pro-research group said the EU should encourage responsible research into SRM\u2019s effects while more anti-research campaigners said the EU should prevent research that could lead to SRM\u2019s deployment and agree not to use it.<\/p>\n Responsible research<\/p>\n Giulia Neri, the interim director of climate interventions at the Brussels-based think-tank Centre for Future Generations (CFG), which supports research into SRM, told Climate Home News that the EU\u2019s statement sends \u201can important and timely signal on the need for rules governing SRM\u201d.<\/p>\n She added that the fact it was issued by foreign \u2013 not climate \u2013 ministers shows \u201ca growing recognition that SRM is a geopolitically relevant technology and not merely a climate-related issue\u201d.<\/p>\n Her colleague, CFG adviser on climate interventions, Matthias Honneger added that the EU nations\u2019 ministers in charge of research \u201cmight also consider how responsible public research under European oversight can help maintain Europe\u2019s influence\u201d.<\/p>\n This is especially important, Honneger said, as \u201cprivate and global actors increasingly dominate what we know about this technology and its risks and benefits\u201d.<\/p>\n A well-funded US-Israeli company Stardust claims to be<\/a> developing the ability to carry out SRM and is seeking customers \u2013 including the US government \u2013 to pay for them to do so.<\/p>\n Impossible to test<\/p>\n Mary Chuch, who campaigns against geoengineering for the Center for International Environmental Law, also welcomed the foreign ministers\u2019 statement.<\/p>\n She said it was right to emphasise \u201cthe risks of highly speculative geoengineering technologies, centre the precautionary principle and reinforce the longstanding moratorium under the Convention on Biological Diversity\u201d.<\/p>\n How Shell is still benefiting from offloaded Niger Delta oil assets<\/a><\/p>\n But, rather than calling for more research, she and political scientist Frank Biermann called for the EU to join governments in Africa and the Pacific in calling for an international non-use agreement on solar geoengineering.<\/p>\n \u201cAs an immediate first step, the European Union must prevent research that could lead to the development and use of solar geoengineering technologies,\u201d Biermann said.<\/p>\n Church said that solar geoengineering is \u201cinherently unpredictable\u201d and that it was \u201cimpossible to fully test for intended and unintended impacts without prolonged large-scale implementation\u201d.<\/p>\n De facto moratorium<\/p>\n The council\u2019s conclusion did not weigh in on the research debate, only resolving to engage in talks on the governance of research.<\/p>\n But European Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation Ekaterina Zaharieva said in 2024<\/a> that research should continue although it should be \u201crigorous and ethical, and it must take full account of the possible range of direct and indirect effects\u201d.<\/p>\n Also in 2024, the Swiss government attempted<\/a> to get countries at the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) to set up an expert group on SRM. But this failed<\/a> due to opposition from the African Group, Colombia, Mexico and others, and Switzerland did not try again at the last UNEA in December 2025.<\/p>\n SRM is currently legal in most nations. But there has been a de facto global moratorium in place on geoengineering \u2013 which includes SRM \u2013 since 2010, when it was agreed by governments under the Convention on Biological Diversity, with exceptions for small-scale scientific research studies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Campaigners working to limit the use of controversial sun-dimming technology have praised the Europe\u2019s foreign ministers for warning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[39,40,23372,23373],"class_list":["post-35321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-eu","tag-european-union","tag-geoengineering","tag-solar-radiation-management"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}