Proposal For United Nations To Study Climate-Cooling Technologies Rejected (reuters.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: A push to launch a high-level study of potentially risky technological fixes to curb climate change was abandoned on Thursday at a U.N. environmental conference in Nairobi, as countries including the United States raised objections. "Geoengineering" technologies, which are gaining prominence as international efforts to curb climate-changing emissions fall short, aim to pull carbon out of the atmosphere or block some of the sun's warmth to cool the Earth. They could help fend off some of the worst impacts of runaway climate change, including worsening storms and heatwaves, backers say. But opponents argue the emerging technologies pose huge potential risks to people and nature, and could undermine efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, not least because many are backed by fossil-fuel interests. Observers at the U.N. Environment Assembly in Nairobi said the Swiss-backed proposal was rejected in part because it called for a "precautionary principle" approach to geoengineering the climate. That principle says great care must be taken in starting activities that have unclear risks for human health or the environment. The United States, Saudi Arabia and Brazil were among the strongest opponents of the proposal, with Japan also expressing reservations.

Comments

Course not!

[SirAstral]

APGW is too much of a cash cow for Political leaders to sacrifice power over. The solution can only allowed to be a political one, it can never be an economic or technological one.

The proposal should go forward if for nothing else than to learn more, regardless of whether the technology/research is useful or not... used or not. Everyone nay saying it likely feels threatened because they are only driven by fear and ignorance. Seriously what is it going to hurt to research it? Other than your personal politics?

the research could actually go towards helping prove that APGW is real, rather than just a theory. It may also help identify better metrics so we can make an accurate prediction as well... since we know they have only failed in all of their models.

Re:To study Geoengineering.

[DNS-and-BIND]

Think of the tragedy if we solved the problem overnight. The attempt to redistribute wealth from America to hostile countries who hate us would fail. Never let a crisis go to waste.