Public Participation and Norm Formation for Risky Technology: Adaptive Governance of Solar-Radiation Management

Abstract

As the international community comes to grips with climate destabilization, it has begun to evaluate potentially risky technologies, such as geoengineering, to mitigate the effects of warming. The geoengineering technology known as solar-radiation management (SRM) poses many risks. There is also great uncertainty about whether society will decide to deploy SRM in the future. Managing these risks and uncertainties requires adaptive governance that will be responsive to new knowledge and changing social systems. We analyse the dimensions of public participation and norm-formation mechanisms of current srm-related legal regimes and governance proposals. We find that there is a need for the social sciences, including legal and governance scholars, to engage with the theoretical and pragmatic challenges of engaging diverse and vulnerable publics fairly and efficiently.

Keywords: solar-radiation management, SRM, climate change, international law