Aerosol Geoengineering Deployment and Fairness

Abstract

If deployed, aerosol geoengineering (AG) could involve unfairness to both present and future parties. I discuss three broad risks of unfairness that an AG deployment policy might carry: (1) causing disproportionate harm to those least responsible for climate change, (2) burdening future parties with the costs and risks of AG and (3) excluding some interested parties from contributing to AG decision-making. Yet despite these risks, it may be too hasty to reject AG deployment as a potential climate-change policy. I argue that since it is very unlikely that a completely fair climate-change policy will be pursued, we have ethical reason to prefer some ‘incompletely fair’ policy. Given various facts about our world, it might be the case that some AG policy is ethically preferable to many other feasible climate change policies, even if AG carries deeply problematic risks of unfairness.

Keywords

Climate change fairness geoengineering risk solar radiation management

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